The CDETS database used by Cisco to store defect details has many more status options than just the four listed (Open, Fixed, Other, Terminated) on the publicly accessible Bug Search Tool Help page. For example, IIRC, “R” for Resolved, “J” for Junked, “D” for Duplicated, “A” for Assigned, etc, etc. My guess is that someone made a simplification decision to map the many internal states into just the four that the public can see, with “Other” standing in for many possibilities. If you talk to someone from Cisco in Services or a Sales SE about a specific defect, they can see in CDETS what the actual status is. This is undoubtedly how you have heard defects being described as “Duplicated” in the past.
I don’t know the percentage, but my personal experience was that a fair number of defects were classified as “Dupes” as they ended up sharing the same root cause and code fix. This is probably why somebody in Cisco chose to describe the “Other” status as “The bug is a duplicate of another bug” rather than one of the other possible states.
Disclaimers: I am long in CSCO. Bad answers are my own fault as they are not AI generated.
