The Road to 2.18

[Christian Robottom Reis]

Speaking on my own behalf here:

On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 09:29:47AM -0800, Mark Davis wrote:
> I'll stop ranting now, but it looks like 91037 should be reprioritized.

It's not a low-priority fix; it *is* a high-impact one, however, that
requires significant effort on behalf of reviewers and maintainers to
understand, review and integrate. And I mean SIGNIFICANT in case that's
still not clear -- complaining about it doesn't change that essential fact.

If you ask me, I would suggest the following as a good way to try and
get it in:

    - Summarize the plan in bite-sized changes.
    - Discuss each of the changes via mailing list and in a bug when
      sufficient consensus is reached.
    - Patch, get review and fix each of these bugs till none are left.
    - Go crazy.

One the key words here is *consensus*. You need to make sure at least
one of the core reviewers understands, approves and agrees with the
changes involved. It's not the reviewer's burden, mind you, though the
reviewer may be effectively interested (I certainly am) in getting this
in, and therefore work to make things easier for whoever's submitting a
patch.

It's *always* easier if patches can be split up into smaller bits and go
in bit-by-bit. Ask Linus what he thinks about large patches that hit him
[and are subsequently dropped] -- there's no way we can try and
guarantee quality if we're not careful about what goes in.

Take care,
--
Christian Robottom Reis | http://async.com.br/~kiko/ | [+55 16] 261 2331