a simple request: apply all outstanding patches.

[Rob Sullivan]

> The problem isn't a bug tracker.  Lots of patches I see either need cleanup
> (#ifdef removal), have a bug that needs squashing, have some subtle
> interaction with obscure platforms (like nommu) or planned upcomming work,
> could be made obviously smaller (well, obviously to me), or are just
> generally "I see what you're trying to do but I think _this_ would be a
> better solution"...
>
> If we had more people doing _that_ kind of review, life would be good.

Hmm - we currently have a convention whereby [PATCH] is prefixed to
posts that contain a patch; how about a two-tiered system? That is,
generally agreeing to use a [REVIEWED PATCH] (or [RPATCH] or something
similar) that would allow cleaned-up patches to be easily found and
applied, and having both patch reviewers and cleaned-up patch
committers?

I'd say one of the most important reasons that people tend to steer
away from cleaning up patches from others is that they're worried that
their work will be useless - it could be that I'll come along and
remove some #ifdefs from a patch, and then find out that somebody's
already applied it and done exactly the same thing, so I'll have
wasted my time. If there were a clear system for working on patches
that have already been submitted, that wouldn't happen too often.

So, the system might work as follows:
1) X submits a patch in a [PATCH] thread.
2) Y reviews X's patch and posts an [RPATCH] thread, with a statement
of the changes made (and the updated patch).
3) Z - someone with write access - goes over Y's patch just to check
that nothing's been missed, and commits it.

Thoughts?

Rob