Distributed code review discussion

[Matus Faro <matusfaro@gmail.com>]

Are there any plans for supporting merge requests and code reviews
natively in git?

What I mean is a distributed code review system where a merge request
along with review comments would be stored within the git repository
and allowed to be pushed and pulled between repository clones. This
would allow users to retain the code review history without relying on
centralized or proprietary third party solutions.

I am debating on creating a plugin for the current git suite starting
with a bash script as a proof of concept and eventually creating a GUI
via Tcl/Tk for best cross-platform support. The idea is to store the
code review metadata as empty commits within a branch. This is for a
number of reasons:
- Ensure backwards compatibility with all current git clients. Classic
git push, pull, merge commands will be able to move the code review
metadata around.
- Easy migration on and off of the distributed code review system. No
leftover metadata stored within the user's repository besides human
readable commits.
- If desired, empty commits can be easily squashed after merge or
summarized into a single commit to retain history.
- Commits can be created outside of the code review plugin.

Example commits:
"## Open refs/heads/distributed-review -> refs/heads/master --
Distributed code review feature"
"## Comment 71a3f9 src/review.c:412 -- Did you even compile this?"
"## Close 71a3f9 -- This feature is horrible, closing..."

Questions:
- Are you interested in adding this sort of functionality to git? I
would be very interested in contributing instead of working alone.
- Am I crazy? Do you see an interest from the community in distributed
code reviews?
- Any other criticism?

Thank you,
Matus Faro