Getting xserver patches reviewed

[Bernardo Innocenti]

On 11/23/07 22:32, Daniel Stone wrote:

> I know that personally, I review every patch on the list as best I can.
> I know this goes for a few others though.  Some of your patches I've
> just genuinely been shit with, but on some, I've decided that I'd like
> to leave reviews to people who know the given area best (e.g. DRI).

Thank you for explaining.

I understand that the main issue with Xorg development is the
unusually low hackers/codebase ratio, which also reduces the
available patch reviewing bandwidth.

As a curiosity, the code checked out by git_xorg.sh is roughly
half the size of the Linux kernel, estimated brutally with LOCs:

  $ find xserver lib proto driver mesa64 drm xcb pixman \
    -name '*.[ch]' | xargs cat | wc -l
  3906110


The number of Xorg contributors can similarly be estimated
like this:

  $ git-log | git-shortlog -s -n | wc -l
  158

By comparison, the Linux kernel has roughly 3400 individual
contributors.

As inaccurate as these methods of forensics may be, they
give an idea of how huge the gap is.  Clearly, the X
maintainers deserve acknowledgment for such a remarkable
effort.


>> I wonder if other developers have experienced the same
>> problem.
> 
> Yes, probably, to be honest.

I see.  If there's not enough time for reviewing everyone's
work, it is very important that nobody feels rejected or
ignored.

Occasional patch submissions, as small and insignificant as they
may seem, offer a good way of attracting fresh new contributors
to the project and improve the situation :-)

-- 
 \___/
 |___|   Bernardo Innocenti - http://www.codewiz.org/
  \___\  One Laptop Per Child - http://www.laptop.org/