"M.-A. Lemburg" <mal@lemburg.com> writes:
I for one wouldn't mind if other developers with some time at hand jump in on already assigned patches and bug reports to help out. Martin does this on a regular basis and I find it really helps.
I personally don't see assignments as a fixed thing. I think developers who cannot process assigned tracker items should unassign themselves - I personally assign things for myself only if I know I can process them in the near future. I also think that people should not consider assigned items as "solved". If they had been assigned quite some time ago, people should indeed contribute if they can.
Another strategy would be for developers to take over maintenance of certain parts of the code. We should then probably have a list of maintainers for the various parts on the patch submission list to make the assignment process easier for the submitting parties.
I don't really think this would work. I quite dislike the idea of somebody being "responsible" for some area of the code, being able to overrule his peers merely by his position - except for the BDFL, of course. Regards, Martin