In sum: early in the cycle - now! - is the time to be clearing the deck, applying any patch that has has obvious support, has addressed any major issues (leaving aside minor details or small remaining discussions) and applies without raising errors.
Who said this differently? It is just a matter of defining what constitutes "minor details".
Goba
You're right, but arguing abstractly over what issues are "major" or "minor" is likely to lead nowhere fast. Likely we'd do better to focus on outcomes: what are we trying to achieve? I see the task as similar to getting ready for a release--we all work together on a common goal. For a release, it's identifying and fixing issues in the already-applied code. In this case - clearing the patch queue, getting many of those great changes and enhancements in - it's doing any remaining basic testing and fixing up of generally proven patches to make sure there aren't any glaring issues preventing application. We can judge by the question: did we clear the queue? A process might look like this: * We establish a goal: e.g., within two months of opening of HEAD, we apply or turn down 80 to 90 percent of patches that are two months or more old (and apply some promising newer ones as well). * At opening of HEAD, we (e.g., a set of volunteers) review the patch list and identify priority patches to be worked through quickly. * Patches from this list are applied if (a) one skilled developer (other than the primary submitter!) affirms successful testing and (b) a week has passed without new problems being identified. Obviously I'm just throwing these details out as ideas. As I write there are 107 core patches in the queue. This includes many that no longer apply, but by the same token some others that don't apply have been been reset to active (so the total list of patches outstanding is larger than 107). Of the subset that are promising, reasonably well reviewed, and have been more than two months in the queue: can we get most of them applied (or turned down) before they have to wait another whole development cycle?