[Buildroot] More maintainers

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Hello Adam,

On Thu, 27 Aug 2020 10:34:31 -0700
Adam Duskett <aduskett at gmail.com> wrote:

> Angelo and I were discussing the state of patches today in regards to Buildroot.
> It seems like the project could benefit from a few more maintainers of
> the project.
> We both understand that this is a volunteer project and that we are
> all adults and have a life outside of the project, and as such, we
> can't expect instant reviews on every submitted patch. However, as the
> project continues to grow in popularity, more patches will continue to
> be offered at an ever-increasing rate. This popularity increase is
> excellent news for the project, but also comes at the cost of more
> time and effort in regards to the number of patches and fixes in the
> queue to review and test.
> 
> As such, we would both like to throw our hat in the ring to help
> maintain the project. We both don't have all the time in the world,
> but any amount of help on the project can help alleviate the primary
> maintainers.

I agree that we probably need to extend or change the current
maintainers team.

However, what is also true is that very little patches that are posted
get review from other contributors. And this is actually what is the
most important. When I see a patch series that has been looked at by 1
or 2 other people that I trust and who gave their Reviewed-by, I will
apply such a patch series very easily, without almost looking at it.

You can go have a look at
https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/buildroot/list/ and see how many
patches in the list have a Reviewed-by tag. Very few. This is
definitely something where everybody can help, and it is by doing such
reviews that the trust will increase with the current maintainers,
which is key for becoming a maintainer IMO.

What do you think ?

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Bootlin
Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering
https://bootlin.com