Maintaining small drm drivers

[Patrik Jakobsson]

Hi Dave and Daniel,

We had a little mishap this morning when I had pushed a fix for gma500
into drm-misc-fixes without first getting someone to review it. The
patch have been on the list for over a month and I don't feel like I
have enough karma to force someone to review it. Since I'm the only
one actively reviewing gma500 stuff I've effectively locked myself out
from submitting patches for the driver. Sure, sometimes others help
out and that is ofc appreciated.

As you suggested Daniel, I could trade light-weight reviews with
someone else. At first it sounds reasonable but when I think about it
it's rather bad. Why should I sell my r-b tags cheap in order to get
patches into the driver I'm maintaining? This model seems broken.
Doing quick reviews because you trust the author is not a good idea.
It defeats the purpose and soils the value of your r-b tag (learned
from my own mistakes).

In the case of gma500 I'm exaggerating the problem a bit but others
will run into the same issue at some point. So my question is, can we
scrap the requirements for an r-b tag in drivers with only one
continuously active developer or at least make it more "soft"? Other
ideas are welcome.

Cheers
Patrik