Can I ask why you would want this? It sounds like a hack to get around the fact that setting up a project takes a long time?

If so - can you outline which parts of setting up a project take a long time, and we can address that instead?

But before I answer your question, I would like to plug the request of having projects comprised of other projects. That would be issue-tracking Nirvana.

Say, for example, you introduce a car with standard transmission, and 6 months later, you introduce that same car as an automatic. Wouldn't it be nice to clone the "standard car" as an "automatic" and just tweak the few items that differentiate the two?

In my particular case, a "project" is the development of a semiconductor chip - a microcontroller. Each micro belongs to a particular family, and micros in a given family share many of the same modules (did I mention how great it would be to describe a project in terms of other projects?). In fact, some micros are really nothing more than a minor cut/enhancement of an existing project, where of the 50 or so IP components, only 2 or 3 might be different.

Ideally, I would pick a clone source, select the components within that source that apply to the new project, pick a new project name, and click "presto!" I now have a new project with a relevant issue history, and it didn't take me several days to build.

Back on my soapbox - this need goes away (for the most part), if projects could be built from projects. In such a case, each IP component would be its own project with its own set of issues. When I build a new project, and include as components these other projects, the issues come along for the ride. That's the crux of it. It's really, really important to be able to effectively propagate an issue identified on a certain product/project (say the standard car's airbag) to all other products/projects that share the same component ('cause the automatic uses the same airbag).

I think your questions cut across a whole lot of different work that we are doing with JIRA (fields with different scopes, improving project categories, making hierachies, lists of issues etc).

Unfortunately one problem we often face with users is that everyone sees the incremental improvements from what they have currently, but not the revolutionary improvements that we have the power to make as developers.

I'm not entirely sure that projects within projects will solve what you want, but I'd love to chat further about your requirements, so that I can ensure we build the features to support what you are trying to do.

Do you have a time to catch up on the phone for say 30 mins, so I can download some info from you? I'm not promising that it will make it into our development schedule in the immediate future, but it will allow us to hear how you are using JIRA, and that will affect how we plan future features.

So - where in the world are you located, and what times generally suit you? 8am-8pm AEST are the hours that I am usually available for a phone call. Can you email me directly? scott <at> atlassian.com

Cheers,
Scott