From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1K3dGU-00050F-QQ for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:37:54 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1K3dGU-0004yv-0f for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:37:54 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=57068 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1K3dGT-0004yP-Pg for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:37:53 -0400 Received: from wx-out-0506.google.com ([66.249.82.227]:29318) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1K3dGT-0000X2-DD for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 03 Jun 2008 16:37:53 -0400 Received: by wx-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id h29so1158991wxd.4 for ; Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:37:52 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4845AB93.2050005@codemonkey.ws> Date: Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:37:39 -0500 From: Anthony Liguori MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] An organizational suggestion References: <193307.64140.qm@web57014.mail.re3.yahoo.com> <18501.20210.209142.106241@mariner.uk.xensource.com> <200806031535.40996.paul@codesourcery.com> <18501.23962.985598.92661@mariner.uk.xensource.com> In-Reply-To: <18501.23962.985598.92661@mariner.uk.xensource.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org List-Id: qemu-devel.nongnu.org List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org Ian Jackson wrote: > Paul Brook writes ("Re: [Qemu-devel] An organizational suggestion"): > >> I'd just like to point out that committing patches is easy. The hard >> (and time consuming) bit is identifying, rejecting, fixing and/or >> making constructive comments on all the bogus patches. The are lots >> of patches that fall into this latter category, e.g. patches that >> have clearly only ever been tested on x86 targets. >> > > Yes. > > >> It doesn't take any special privileges to do this patch review. >> > > That's true, but it doesn't tell the whole story. Anyone can > criticise a patch (and we do). But while review by a non-committer is > very helpful, it still doesn't mean that the committer doesn't have to > do review of their own. After all the committer is actually the > gatekeeper and has the personal responsibility to commit good code. > > Also, review and improvement of patches by non-committer contributors > depends on the contributors' expectation that patch will be accepted > when it is good. There is no point in people reviewing and commenting > on and improving patches if the maintainers don't have the time or > inclination to get those refined patches actually reviewed by them and > committed. > Here's a couple things I notice that often cause a patch to be dropped: 1) It has something wrong, but not sufficiently interesting enough for anyone to offer feedback 2) It has something wrong, there's a thread with discussion and resubmissions of the patch, and the thread eventually cools off with a patch people are happy with 3) It's lost in the noise #3 is something that happens. A contributer has to resend patches to any project. I don't think this happens very often on QEMU. More often, I think the problem is #1. This is something that we all can fix by just reviewing patches. This has been an important issue for a while now and I'm willing to dedicate a portion of my time to reviewing patches. For anyone submitting a patch to qemu-devel, feel free to CC me to make sure I review it. I'm not saying that my review will guarantee acceptance, but I will keep track of patches I've reviewed. #2 is a process problem. It's unclear in this sort of thread, who's happy with the patch, and whether a conclusion has been reached. The best thing to do is here to make use of Reviewed-by or Acked-by tags and to resubmit the patch as a top-level posting once consensus has been reached. With a few more people dedicating time to patch review I think we can improve things quite a bit. Regards, Anthony Liguori