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