Re: Non-committer reviews: is it helpful?

30.01.2026 01:20, David G. Johnston пишет:
> On Thu, Jan 29, 2026 at 3:07 PM Alexander Borisov <lex(dot)borisov(at)gmail(dot)com
> <mailto:lex(dot)borisov(at)gmail(dot)com>> wrote:
>
> I have a question for the community. While waiting for feedback on my
> own patches, I was wondering: is there value in me reviewing other
> people's patches, even though I am not a committer here?
>
>
> Non-committers moving patches from "needs review" to "ready for
> committer" is a critical activity here.  It is part of the soft contract

It's just that the committers decide in the end.

> one enters into when authoring patches - to try and perform an amount of
> review work equivalent to what you are asking from others.

Sorry, I'm not asking anything of others, I didn't quite understand your
point (sorry, English is not my native language). With my patches, I
proposed significant improvements for Postgres.

I'm just trying to understand—would a patch review from a third-party
developer be useful, would it help the committers in any way?

> As for which ones to review - everyone has their own natural
> prioritization methodology (and capabilities) just by interacting with
> the project and community.  I'd suggest you don't overthink things and
> just do what feels right to you.

I am a former NGINX developer, worked with NJS (and more), and have
extensive experience in C. I just want to understand how useful reviews
from non-committers and contributors (not in list) are.
I want to be useful to the community.

I have been involved in open source for a long time, and the Postgres
community is the most mysterious to me. No one is accountable for
anything, it's anarchy, everyone decides what they need.
I'm trying to understand the rules of the "game".

--
Regards,
Alexander Borisov