[development] Reviewing patches and making decisions -> Sociocracy could be a way to go!

[Angela Byron]

> Yes I can read the code but the question above can not be answered by reading 
> the code - much more helpful would be a comment what the _aim_ of some lines 
> of code is.
> 
> And maybe the group working on and with that particular module has a list of 
> decisions (not a mailinglist) and why they where made - so one could go back 
> to the original decision (should be referenced in the code) and look up what 
> the original intention was. 
> 
> Do you agree that these information could help a lot in similar situaltions?

This is actually a feature built into CVS (and most other version 
control systems) called CVS Annotate that does exactly that:
http://www.lullabot.com/articles/cvs_annotate_or_what_the_heck_were_they_thinking

For every line of code, you can discover who made the change, when they 
made it, and why. Assuming the maintainer is following standard commit 
message patterns, you can also reference the original issue that has all 
the background information on discussions on the code that were had, the 
development evolution of the feature over time, and why the decision was 
ultimately made to commit it.

It's a pretty awesome resource because it's automatically updated with 
every commit, without the need for any manual intervention or extra 
overhead.

-Angie