reviews needed, apply within

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Martin Pool writes:
 > On 19 April 2010 16:45, Robert Collins <robertc at robertcollins.net> wrote:

 > > This didn't feel quite right to me, so I've gone and had a
 > > browse; I think that essentially we had a number that are waiting
 > > on the submitter, but are set needs-review (waiting on
 > > reviewers); so I've toggled them to work-in-progress.
 > 
 > When there's a proposal by a non-core person that needs more work, I
 > don't think we should just put it back in their lap.

But "needs-review" is also incorrect semantics.  Some are going to be
wontfixes from the point of view of the core people, and many will
simply have too much left to do to call the work needed, "review".

If you think that the freelancer got hit by a bus and will be laid up
in a hospital for a while, it makes sense for the patch pilot to pick
it up and either do it himself or find another volunteer (including a
core person, possibly) in many cases.  But not always, probably not
close to always.  Patch piloting should be rewarding, too.  Helping
people do their own work better, and improving the product, is
rewarding.  Janitorial work (which is typically going to be what's
left, no?), not so much.

 > So I said the queue is getting long but what I really meant is that I
 > would like some core contributors to help finish off languishing
 > patches.

Ah, but which patches?  One major benefit of the patch pilot system is
that it's about freelancers scratching their own itches.  But this is
going to be substantially more costly, because the reviewer needs to
not only decide how to fix it (which probably actually has mostly been
done), but also decide whether it's worth fixing in the first place.