lack of reviewers

[Peter Hutterer]

On 18/05/12 17:43 , walter harms wrote:
>
>
> Am 18.05.2012 01:14, schrieb Peter Hutterer:
>> On Thu, May 17, 2012 at 10:39:55AM +0200, Ernst Sjöstrand wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> (sorry for jumping in from the outside and breaking the thread!)
>>>
>>> I read about this problem and wanted to offer a suggestion!
>>>
>>> What if you set up a Gerrit server for git.freedesktop.org? That's the
>>> tool the Android OpenSource project uses among other things:
>>> https://android-review.googlesource.com/
>>> Perhaps if it was easier to contribute to reviewing code, more people
>>> would do it more often?
>>
>>> It's also a very nice tool I have to say, I use it every day at work.
>>> It's easy to integrate with automatic
>>> testing of patchsets before they're submitted to the repository for example.
>>
>> tbh I doubt what we have is a tool problem. Patches are sent to the list and
>> can be reviewed quite easily there (for subscribers, anyway). The issue we
>> have is manpower and, more importantly, manpower of people with enough
>> knowledge to judge whether a patchset has side-effects beyond the obvious.
>>
>> in the end, such patches tend fall on the shoulders of a few and adding
>> another tool that they have to check will increase, not decrease, the
>> workload for those.
>>
>
> Maybe i can be useful, since i am not a core developer but i review patches from
> time to time on the code only. For me the biggest problem is that i can not get the
> whole picture easly.

each patch has two components - the code and the big picture. there are 
plenty of patches where the big picture is easy enough (if you know it) 
but looking at the code is tedious. so a rev-by for the code correctness 
allows others to focus on the big picture stuff. and sooner or later, 
you'll start seeing the big picture too. so don't underestimate "just 
code" reviews, they're very helpful.

Cheers,
   Peter

 > When i do the same with linux patches i can go to LXR and get
> an idea what is going on. For *me* it would be helpful to have such a beast for X11.
>
> Getting more people into reviewing is a hard business because the motivation can be
> very different.
>
> just my 2 cents,
> re,
>   wh