[FFmpeg-devel] maintainer duties (was: Re: [PATCH] fix speex sample)

[Diego Biurrun]

On Thu, Apr 09, 2009 at 03:48:05PM +0200, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 09, 2009 at 09:33:26AM +0200, Diego Biurrun wrote:
> > On Wed, Apr 08, 2009 at 06:30:56PM -0700, Baptiste Coudurier wrote:
> [...]
> > Now while we're speaking of maintainer duties...  I agree with your
> > position much more than I agree with Michael's, but I have to point out
> 
> i think we should clarify once and for all what duties a maintainer has
> because people apply worse than double standards here
> and because this is a matter very critial to keeping the project functioning
> 
> Theres no question that until recently a submited patch was reviewed,
> and when suggestions for improvments where provided, the patch author
> then had to fix the patch if he wanted it in svn or explain why the
> suggestions where undesireable.
> 
> Do you propose that maintainers should fix patches themselfs now?
> Or do you propose that patches failing review should still be commited?
> Or do you propose not to review patches?
> 
> If none of above, then where do you disagree with me?

I think maintainers should (in descending order of priorities)

1) review patches,
2) fix bugs and
3) implement missing features

in the areas they maintain.  Of course since especially 3) can take
arbitrary amounts of time, things have to be prioritized according to
the factors fun and importance.

Patch review can take several iterations.  Sometimes it's quicker to fix
up patches or implement alternatives directly instead of having the
patch submitter do it.  In these cases I think it's preferable for the
maintainer to do the coding unless one expects the patch submitter to
learn some valuable lesson that may pay off down the road.

I'm under the impression that you could often fix issues in much less
than the time it takes you to write reviews.  In other words, I believe
you could work more efficiently if you skipped a review every once in a
while.

Also, if patch submitters are unresponsive IMO maintainers should fix up
and commit patches themselves.

Diego