On Sat, 2 Nov 2002, Stephen Davies wrote: > On Sat, 2 Nov 2002, Dr Andrew C Aitchison wrote: > > > Speaking as someone in the "outer circle" (I'm on the private lists, but > > don't get to change the code) I think that the problem is that none one will > > commit a patch that they don't understand. > > Hi Andrew, > > So those who send patches should expect some feedback or questions as to > our code. > > I submitted a tdfx driver patch on 7th Oct: > > > Your submission to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> has been assigned the > > sequence number A.1297. > > I would have expected some sort of reply, perhaps one of: > > - patch accepted > - send your patch to xx@yy, maintainer of the tdfx driver > - we don't understand and won't apply - explain why you do ...
That would be reasonable, but *somebody* would have make such a decision. If your patch falls within the interest of on the developers with commit access it will be accepted (or rejected) quickly. However, my impression is that the [EMAIL PROTECTED] address is so short-staffed that other patches may be stuck in a queue for a substantial time (I think I've had patches take two months before I've heard anything). If we don't have a tdfx maintainer your second suggestion isn't an option; and a message "your patch looks interesting, but we can't handle developments in that area of the server" sounds bad. Conscientious, overloaded people have a habit of trying to do the right thing later, rather than the wrong thing now. I don't really know how we can get more resource into handling submitted patches; we can't get just anyone to do it since this is a major part of our quality control, and even our most experienced, active developers are capable of submitting canges which cause problems. Should we try to raise money to hire someone with a lot of experience of the X code, not to do development, but to process the patch queue ? -- Dr. Andrew C. Aitchison Computer Officer, DPMMS, Cambridge [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~werdna _______________________________________________ Xpert mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/xpert
