120230 - Discussion Bug - Patch Pool

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Bugzilla :: Bugzilla-General, defect, P1)

Description

[Matthew Tuck [:CodeMachine]]

The perennial problem of the "patch pool".  As if it was ever a queue.

How are we going to make it bounce off zero?  Discuss it 1000 words or less.

Comment 1

[Matthew Tuck [:CodeMachine]]

My take - we all know reviewing isn't what the cool kids do.  We need to find
other ways to encourage it.

We could perhaps make the component owners responsible as "the buck stops here"
for old unreviewed patches, although anyone could still review.  This is the use
of shame.  Troublesome, because some of us (eg Myk) have many more bugs than
others.  Furthermore, the component owners were kind of thrust into the job -
I'm not sure Dawn does much with her bugs these days.  It might be possible to
transition to a shame based system though.

A similar, but team-wide use of shame might be to try and measure the oldest
patches - would this require extra functionality?

We could encourage review swapping as a way to increase the benefit someone gets
from reviewing.  We all want our bug in - this is the use of self interest.  A
lot, but not all of the patches from outside the core team could slip through
this though.

Another self-interest technique is getting admin/developers who want a feature
on their installation to review it.  It might help, or it might lead to them
contributing more patches, which isn't bad, but doesn't solve this problem.

Comment 2

[Matthew Tuck [:CodeMachine]]

This is a brainstorming bug, no idea is too ridiculous - it could lead onto a
useful idea.

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Post-2.16, every bug with a patch should be spammed asking the patch author to
check in and verify that the patch is still current and relevant. Bugzilla has
changed a lot, and many patches are now obsolete.

If no reply is heard, we say either "This is cool enough that we still want to
do it; leave the bug open" or "this is dead; close the bug. If anyone cares
about this, they'll open it or another."

Gerv

Comment 4

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

I think we should close this bug; the mailing list and newsgroups are more
appropriate forums for discussion.

Gerv

Comment 5

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Resolving.

Gerv