Difference between "Won't fix" and "Rejected" resolutions?

[Martin Rust]

In JIRA (v4.4#649-r158309), for resolving an issue I see, among others, the options "Won't fix" and "Rejected".

The help box defines the first as "The problem described is an issue which will never be fixed" and the second as "This issue is not considered for fix or implementation. Please see any comments for detailed reasons".

I don't really see a striking difference between these two definitions. Is there any/when should I use which resolution, or is it by mistake that there are both options?

[Martin Rust]

Ah, I see that there are some default resolutions that were shipped with JIRA, and it seems that "Won't fix" is among them, while "Rejected" is not, so it must have been added by my admin. Thanks, so I'll ask him 

[Norman Abramovitz]

You are correct you need to ask. From an English language point of 'would not fix' means there is no merit to the idea, while 'rejected' means there was some merit to the idea but will not be fixing it. The difference measures the severity of the rejection.

[JamieA]

I don't even agree with Norman's definition. Won't fix means "Will not", not "Would not", and to me it means that it is indeed a bug but the impact or benefit is not worth the effort to fix, whereas Rejected means the bug could not be reproduced or was a user misunderstanding. IMHO you should keep the list of resolutions as small as possible, and not try to cram too much meaning into them.

[Martin Rust]

Just FYI, my admin intended "Won't fix" to mean that a developer has decided it technically cannot be fixed, and "Rejected" to mean that a fix would be technically possible, but was judiciously rejected. But in our team we're all not English native speakers, so our interpretation is not authoritative ;) And yes @Jamie, I advocate merging the two together.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The resolutions are a simple label for us humans.  Nothing more.

They matter to JIRA in the sense that the field is either <empty> (unresolved) or <has something> (resolved)

But it doesn't care what those <somethings> are.  On a human level "Won't fix" means "The developers have closed this because they are not going to fix it", and "Rejected" probably means much the same for a developer, but may have a different meaning to your business (e.g. if it's an improvement suggestion and your analysts approve/reject it).  JIRA doesn't care about the words, just whether the field is full or not.

In short, it's up to you and your users to define the difference between the two resolutions are!