[FFmpeg-devel] Recommendations to facilitation patch reviews on forgejo/ML?

[Romain Beauxis]

Le sam. 2 août 2025 à 04:59, Nicolas George <george at nsup.org> a écrit :
>
> Romain Beauxis (HE12025-08-01):
> > Part of my question is: how should people know what are the area you
> > are responsible for and who to contact when working on specific areas?
>
> I know it and I am perfectly fine with reading the summary line of every
> submitted patch to see if I need to open it. Anything less would be
> irresponsible for somebody who have contributed to multiple parts of the
> code anyway.
>
> The issue is afterwards. Right now, if the summary tells me I should be
> interested, it takes me one key to start reading the patch and one key
> to start reviewing it. With the new proposal, it takes multiple clicks:
> that is not acceptable.
>
> Our problem is not that we do not get enough patches, our problem is
> that we do not have enough people with the knowledge and will to review
> them. So, how would you qualify a measure that (1) brings more patches
> and (2) cause more work to the people who might review them?

It is a chicken and egg problem.

Casual contributors eventually become knowledgeable about the
framework/code base which eventually leads to some of them becoming
seasoned developers and reviewers.

If you want to grow the number of people working with the project, you've
got to be able to open the funnel and welcome new contributors.

Whether everyone agrees on its merit or not, online web-based development
platforms have become the norm for collaborative coding and reviewing and
adopting this workflow is a good way to get more people to start
contributing.

That being said, I understand that these tools are making your work more
difficult and how this potentially reduces again the ability for people to
get reviews.

On a personal level, I can attest, regardless of the tools being used, it
is currently incredibly hard to get feedback on your contributions.

I have given all 3 avenues, the ML, IRC and forge infinite patience and
kindness but this is still not working.

-- Romain

> Regards,
>
> --
>   Nicolas George
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