Re: [Qemu-devel] Improving patch tracking - something like gerrit?

[Stefan Hajnoczi]

On Mon, Feb 03, 2014 at 12:45:31PM +0000, Mark Cave-Ayland wrote:
> Is it time for QEMU to start looking at tools such as gerrit to help
> manage this process?

This has been addressed by Daniel Berrange but I just wanted to add my
vote *against* gerrit.

Instead, look at tools that correlate mailing list emails with git
commits.  They complement the mailing list and don't force people to use
them.  The options that I'm aware of are Patchwork and Anthony's
"patches" tool.  Both have limitations and I haven't found them good
enough - but hopefully that can be fixed.

http://jk.ozlabs.org/projects/patchwork/
https://github.com/aliguori/patches

> There seems to be an increasing number of ping
> requests for outstanding patches (including my own) which don't get
> applied for weeks, and often even months because they target less
> popular platforms/subsystems and so don't always get the attention
> of the committers.

The answer isn't tooling, IMO.

Send "ping" emails but also be vocal when the development process isn't
working.  Point out specific cases where more maintainership bandwidth
is needed.

Then new maintainers can volunteer to fill in gaps.  Existing
maintainers can reflect on their performance and try to improve things
(I've been guilty of poor responsiveness many times myself).

Stefan