On Thu, 10 Aug 2017 10:22:54 +0100 Peter Maydell <peter.mayd...@linaro.org> wrote:
> On 10 August 2017 at 09:46, Cornelia Huck <coh...@redhat.com> wrote: > > The root problem is "some files have no maintainers". The reasons range > > from "forgot to include the file in the pattern" (easily fixed), over > > "file is updated via a script" (the linux-headers case), to "nobody > > feels up to the task" (which is the worst case). > > > > In most cases, I don't think the recent contributors list is very > > helpful. Somebody who simply did a tree-wide rename is unlikely to be > > able to make a good judgment about a complicated logic change. Just > > printing qemu-devel as the address to send this to is probably better; > > unfortunately, it may cause patches to languish on the list if nobody > > takes pity on them. > > > > Do we need someone collecting non-trivial patches like that, who either > > pesters others or picks up the patches themselves? > > The problem is that if nobody's feeling up to the task of taking > on a particular single file which has no maintainer, then it's > definitely true that nobody's going to feel up to taking on > the entire collection of unmaintained files... > > I think the UI (giving no consideration to how we might implement > this!) would ideally be something like: > * if anybody mails a patch which touches an "unmaintained" file, > a robot should send a reply along the lines of "thanks for the > patch; unfortunately file X is not maintained so it may be > tricky to get patch review for this. You'll need to be > persistent and do more of the legwork than if you were patching > a file that did have an active maintainer" so contributors > know when they've wandered into the swamp That's a good idea. > * some mechanism for easily finding patches to unmaintained > files which haven't got review yet, so that anybody with some > spare time and interest can move some of them along (the idea > being to spread the load rather than trying to designate a > particular "owner" for this headache) Can maybe patchew set a special flag for patches that only touch unmaintained files? > * ditto for finding patches to unmaintained files which have got > review but which haven't been committed > > thanks > -- PMM
