[drupal-devel] Proposal: change "fixed" status to mean "ready to commit"

[Nedjo Rogers]

A patch I proposed nine weeks ago to improve project the project issue 
review process went nowhere.

Issue: http://www.drupal.org/node/17052
Patch: 
http://drupal.org/files/issues/admin_configurable_status_options.patch

But (not to be deterred, since I still believe barriers to community 
participation in the development process are the most pressing issues in 
Drupal development) I have another, much more modest suggestion, that I 
think could help move things along without (gasp) changing code.

The problem: there is no way for qualified Drupal developers to push 
patches up the queue, or in other words to designate a patch as meeting 
acceptance criteria.  Patches sit at "patch" status indefinitely, 
waiting until one of the three CVS committers personally reviews and 
accepts (or denies) them, setting the status then to "fixed" (or "won't 
fix"), which in many cases never happens.

My proposal: that we change "fixed" to mean "ready to commit" or "meets 
acceptance criteria (i.e., works as promised and is a worthwhile change 
fitting with Drupal aims and principles)".  That way, qualified 
developers can designate a patch as ready to apply.  If it is applied, 
the CVS committer would set the status to "closed".

This change would be consistent with e.g., bugzilla on mozilla, where 
"fixed" is set before a change is applied, and preceeds final review and 
application.

A full solution?  No.  A valuable start, and much better than doing 
nothing?  I think, yes.

--------
Nedjo Rogers
Learning Technologies Developer
GroundWorks Learning Centre
(250) 360-0799
nedjo at gworks.ca