[development] Very concerned over Drupal's core development

[Karoly Negyesi]

Hi,

I know there are many patches are written, reviewed and committed
still. But, without intending to  critique of anyone in particular, I
see a very dangerous cycle:

As Drupal 5 and 6 are very good, rock solid releases, people are
satisfied and very busy there, much less is the need, the drive and
the availability for core development. This means less patches are
written. Also core got bigger. Very, very few people touch
actions/triggers, fields, filter system, openid or for that matter,
menu just to name a few. Once a patch is written , it needs a review.
However, the testing bot, curiously, made patch reviews even harder --
no longer can a novice just install a patch, click around and report
back "works" ( the testing bot, of course added a lot of quality to
Drupal, I am not saying, down with the bot). This has very severe
consequences: we always had too few reviewers and now the entry
barrier is even harder as you need to do meaningful code reviews all
the time. Low reviewer activity means patches do not get 'bumped' and
they linger. Lingering is exacerbated by the loss of Steven and that
the single guy who can call the big decisions now has a kid (soon two)
and two companies to run. Of course, this leads to frustration on
behalf of the patch writers and even less patches get written or
reviewed and people draw back into their own little contrib empire
where they call the shots...

Regards

Karoly Negyesi