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

[Robert Huff]

Jerry writes:

>  > Ha, i've submitted mine about two months ago and still no luck.
>  
>  Personally, I believe that the current system, if not partially
>  broken, is far from ideal. I would prefer to see a system where
>  each submitted PR is assigned a specific number (I believe it is
>  actually) and then assigned in numeric order to the next
>  available committer.

	Not all committers are created equal.  Asking Joe-the-fonts- 
guru to work on Mary's network monitoring application is probably
not productive.
	Keeping a centralized list of who/what pairs - more
importantly, keeping it useful - is another job on someone's desk.
Are you that someone?

>  I am sure that the old, "But they are all volunteers", or some
>  such tirade will erupt.

	Not a tirade, but ... guilty.

>  It must be remembered that those who submit items for approval
>  are also volunteers. They deserve at least as much respect as
>  those who are actively working on those submitted items.

	Am I correct you are asking for a (far) higher level of
dedication from the committers than from those who submit changes?
Consider the port that goes untouched (in spite of substantial
upstream changes) for months or even years; someone picks up the
torch, and the poor committer gets N-thousend lines of new features,
security patches, and dependency changes dumped on them to be
checked in ... how long was that?

	Do I think there are flaws in the current system?  Sure.
	But as long as we're faced with this particular choice of evils
- slow updating versus lowered quality - I vote "first, do no harm".
	Respectfully,


				Robert Huff