How are [MAINTAINER] patches handled and why aren't PRs FIFO?

[John Marino]

Since we're already in the mood to discuss FreeBSD ports issues, maybe 
somebody can clear something up for me.

Several days ago, I submitted a patch for a port I maintain:
ports/156541     "[MAINTAINER] Upgrade lang/gnat-aux to release version 
and add C++"

Nobody has touched it, but many other PRs after that submission have 
been assigned, etc.  So I have two questions:

1) What's involved with processing a patch from a maintainer?  Is it 
simply a committer commits it on behalf of the maintainer (iow very 
easy?).  Or is it the other end of the spectrum where it has to go 
through Tinderbox?  I would assume the maintainer is trusted and the 
patch is applied without testing.

2) I have very well aware that people dedicate their own time, etc, and 
I think that explains why the PRs are getting cherry picked.  But 
seriously, shouldn't there be a policy to process these PRs in order?

I'm sure it's been like this for years, but it doesn't seem like the 
best approach to me.  Or at least the fairest.  Maybe if an interesting 
PR is submitted it will give extra incentive to process the waiting PRs 
to get to it.

-- John