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

[Mark Linimon]

Let's play "let's pretend".

Let's pretend I'n on the ports management team (true).

Let's pretend I have enough influence to talk the rest of the ports
management team into agreeing with me (very debatable, based on past
performance.)

Then, let's pretend that portmgr promotes a new policy, "all PRs must
be handled in a FIFO manner."

So ... what will the committers say?

"Hey, no one asked me what I think, I didn't sign up for this, I think
I'll find something else better to do.  Wonder what's on TV?"

And what should the portmgrs do?  Hold our breaths until we turn blue?

Well.

As pointed out above, portmgr can either: suspend someone's commit bit,
or not.

In general, we only suspend for a year of inactivity.  (For maintainers,
the timeout on PRs is 2 weeks; we can reset after 3 months of inactivity).

Anything more aggressive than that, will simply discourage existing, and
potential, volunteers: both maintainers, and commiters.  IMVVHO.

(And yes, behind the scenes portmgr does a lot of work with twisting arms 
nd asking "are you sure you want to keep maintainership of port foo, since
we have someone that seems willing to work on it?"  But that's not the
same as adding a new requirement for committers, ex post facto.)

mcl