Re: Patch status for a non-developer

["Andrew Conkling" <andrew conkling gmail com>]

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 7:51 AM, Andrew Conkling <andrew conkling gmail com> wrote:

On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 11:10 PM, Diego Escalante Urrelo <diegoe gnome org> wrote:

On 7/29/08, Andrew Conkling <andrew conkling gmail com> wrote:

> For a non-developer (like me) interested in contributing to bugs and the
> inevitable patches, is there a status I can slap on a patch to say, "I've
> checked this out and, at the very least, it does what it says it does [but I
> can't speak to its elegance, style, or other code-specific things]"?

Right now I can comment you based on my experience with the GTK+
patches that the hard work is only getting developers to review the
patches. I can advice you the following concretely:
 - Do a list of patches, mostly simple fixes
 - Group those patches like: small, ready to commit, decision needed, etc.
 - Try with small patches first so the patch queue flush is more evident.

<SNIP>

A good first task would be to pick modules from the module list in the
wiki (mostly Vincent modules) and try -say- 5 patches and get together
in IRC to try to come up with a common workflow and format to present
our work.

Patchsquad or not, how is my review work to be presented to the developers? You mention IRC which a) I rarely use and b) doesn't really suit the task, IMO (I'd likely be around when the main developers aren't, at least for Banshee). I was really wondering about Bugzilla-specific methods. Are there any? Should I send around a "patch summary" via email to the project's mailing list?

A more pointed question: What's the "reviewed" patch status, as opposed to accepted/needs-work? That would seem to be a good "holding pattern" for a patch until a developer gets around to taking a look. Any reason that couldn't work?