Brion Vibber wrote:
In many cases these are patches for a bug, in which
case bugzilla is a good
place to stash an updated patch version to be looked over. (In a DVCS
workflow this might be a branch on a fork rather than a flat patch, but the
principle is the same and we *ought* to be able to do ok with patches -- 20+
years of free/open source devs have reviewed, iterated, and landed or
clearly rejected changes this way, including us!)
Someone uploads a patch to Bugzilla and doesn't use IRC (and so they can't
nag for review there). What's your recommendation for that scenario? This
mailing list? If so, is there a concern about diffused responsibility?
I haven't seen many requests for patch review on this list in the past, as
far as I remember. A separate list or a direct line to the Bugmeister might
make more sense, though in an ideal world, people wouldn't need to nag at
all...
The reality is that uploading a patch on Bugzilla should be sufficient to
trigger review. At that point, the uploader has put in his or her share of
the work. But very often uploading a patch or even prodding in bug comments
leads to no response at all for months or years or ever. Sometimes you'll
get lucky and someone on the CC list will be able to help you (or find
someone to help you). Or you'll get lucky and someone will notice the bug in
#mediawiki and take an interest. It's a crapshoot, though. And it seems to
me that a lot of the people who commit patches are the same people who don't
use IRC or don't know who to nag if they do.
I'm not trying to be negative here, though it may come off that way. I'm
just trying to understand how people are supposed to be able to help
currently and going forward.
MZMcBride