RE: 524 open PATCH bugs... eek

[Murray Cumming Comneon com]

> From: Luis Villa [mailto:louie ximian com] 
> Consider this a friendly reminder from your neighborhood bugmaster: A
> bug with PATCH on it is not a bug, it's a potential 
> contributor begging
> to be let in your door and help you put on your 
> pants^W^W^W^Wfix up your
> code. :)

Maintainers are too busy, but there are solutions. For instance, I try to
encourage people to review patches [1] for me. When I've approved them, I
try to encourage other people to do the boring work of committing them.
People like having that responsibility. Experience shows that it gets them
more involved, leading to more contributions, and often full maintainership.

I think maintainers who don't have the time should be asking for help with
maintaining.  There are people who would like to help. It doesn't mean
abandoning quality control.


[1]
You can help maintainers a little just by checking that patches have
- ChangeLog entries.
- the PATCH keyword in the bugzilla bug
- that the patch fixes one issue without doing extra unrelated stuff.

If you actually know something about the module then you can do lots more:
- Apply the patch to your cvs checkout and see if it fixes the problem.
- See whether you understand the patch and ask for explanation if you don't.

It's never rude to do some of the maintainers work for him, as long as you
don't actually commit to cvs without his permission.

Murray Cumming
murrayc usa net
www.murrayc.com