Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Recruitment (Reviewers, Testers, Maintainers, Hobbyists)

[Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>]

On 07/08/2015 08:02 AM, Jason Cooper wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 08, 2015 at 09:04:58AM +0200, Peter Hüwe wrote:

>> "I've been a kernel reviewer and tester" -- meh, who cares
>
> Show me a concrete example where that has been expressed.  I've had the
> exact opposite experience.  Typically I've had to tone down the
> expectations of others.
>
Lucky you.

In my experience, code reviews often don't get much attention by project
managers responsible for commercial projects. If anything, quite the opposite.
The Linux kernel development culture is quite different.

Linux kernel:
	"Thanks a lot for reviewing my code and making it better".
Commercial:
	"Why do your reviews always take such a long time ?
	You are holding up the release!"

Granted, that doesn't happen everywhere, but I have seen it more than once,
and I would content that this kind of culture is pretty widely spread.

Anyone entering such an environment might actually encounter negative
reactions to "I am a kernel reviewer and tester". Of course, one might
argue that joining an affected company might not be a good idea in the
first place, but not everyone has that much flexibility or choice.

I am not saying that it would be a bad idea to give code reviewers more
credit; quite the contrary. However, I think it would be wrong to assume
or expect that giving reviewers more credit would improve their chances
for employment. It would, however, result in reviewers feeling recognized
for themselves, which is a good thing.

Why does it matter ? I had a discussion a while ago with the founder of
one of the web sites providing product reviews. I suggested to give product
reviewers some kind of monetary reward for their reviews, eg part of the
advertising revenue created by the site. Feedback I got was that reviewers
typically don't care about monetary rewards, but they do care about recognition
and about their standing in the community.

Guenter