by 
Since the previous update, another 16 patches have wended their way into the master branch. However, there are a lot of branches waiting in the wings, so that will be the focus of today’s update.
In particular, at the moment there are a bit over 50 bugs in Launchpad that have a “pullrequest” tag (meaning that somebody has written some patches that they think are already to be tested and merged) but which do not have a “signoff” tag (meaning that somebody else has tested the patches and found that they work for the tester).
While 50 outstanding pull requests is not terrible — a few open source projects have hundreds or even thousands — a few of those pull requests have gone without feedback for months or years.
To help deal with the backlog, I’m calling a feedback fest for next week (15 to 19 May). The goal of the feedback fest is, as the name implies, to give each of the pull requests substantive feedback. Feedback can take several forms, including
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rebasing older pull request branches against the current master
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commenting on the bug and the proposed patches
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deciding if the bug no longer applies or (as might be the case with some XUL interfaces) can be left alone
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testing and signing off on the patches
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writing automated test cases for pull requests that need them
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writing human test plans
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writing release notes entries
I’ve asked the core committers who are available to take one several of the pending pull requests apiece, but the feedback fest is something that many people can contribute to. Any coder should feel free to look at the patches; any end user should feel free to advise on whether the proposed solution would need their needs.
Happy festing!
Duck trivia
North American sea ducks are poorly understood as compared to land-based species, and in the 1990s, their numbers were seen to be declining. To address this, the Sea Duck Joint Venture was formed.
Submissions
Updates on the progress to Evergreen 3.0 will be published every Friday until general release of 3.0.0. If you have material to contribute to the updates, please get them to Galen Charlton by Thursday morning.