Patch states are ambiguous to me

[Josh Boyer]

On Wed, Jan 07, 2009 at 02:22:34PM +0000, Alasdair G Kergon wrote:
>I find the meaning of several of the states ambiguous.
>Could some help text be added to define them and describe a suggested workflow?
>
>For example, does 'Accepted' mean the maintainer has accepted the patch into
>his or her tree, or that Linus has accepted the patch into the kernel?

That's up to the project.  For linuxppc-dev, we typically mark it as Accepted
once it is in the main powerpc tree.

>What is 'Awaiting Upstream' for?  Awaiting something to happen upstream,
>like a dependency on something in another tree being accepted first?

In powerpc land, the maintainers have typically used that to indicate that
it's on it's way upstream.

>What is the distinction between 'New' and 'Under Review'?
>- Isn't anything new automatically under review?

Um, no.  What crazy world do you live in where there are an over-abundance
of reviewers just waiting to look at every patch that comes in?  ;)

New means "patch has been posted, nobody looked at it yet"

Under Review means "someone is actually reviewing the patch now"

josh