[Nix-dev] Too many open issues

[obadz]

On Fri, Jul 22, 2016 at 6:21 PM, Guillaume Maudoux (Layus) <
layus.on at gmail.com> wrote:

> Furthermore, I think that every issue should be assigned to someone. Being
> assigned to an issue would mean that you are responsible for its progress,
> like pinging the maintainers, not for fixing the problem by yourself (but
> you still can).
>

I think this is a key point. While we can't really hope for 0 open
issues/PR, maybe we should be striving towards 0 unassigned issues/PR.

May I suggest a policy where we "liberally" assign issues/PR to each other.
The lifecycle of an issue/PR would then look something like this:

   - First triager comes up with his best guess as to who could be useful
   on the issue/PR, maybe based on `git log`
   - First assignee may decide that he isn't the best person to look at
   this and reassigns further
   - Hopefully the iterative process lets assignment converge towards the
   right expert

Of course the downside of such a process is that major contributors whose
time is already stretched thin are going to end up with a
disproportionately high share of issues/PRs assigned to them. However they
are also most likely to know who is capable of tackling the issue/PR and
further re-assign it, or to request help by adding a tag like `status:
need-help`?

The key here would be that we shouldn't get rattled if we get assigned an
issue/PR. All it means is "I think you know more about this than I do, feel
free to pass it on to someone else if aren't the right person or can't
handle this with the appropriate urgency".

Thoughts?
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