When to do a review for a downported change?

[Aleksey Shipilev]

On 5/14/19 4:56 PM, Lindenmaier, Goetz wrote:
> Do we really need reviews if a backport does not apply
> for trivial reasons?  I always do them, but it seems quite some
> overhead to me.
> I consider at least changes in the context of a hunk and
> changes in the copyright year as trivial.

I would say trivial conflict resolutions in the comments (not affecting the semantics of the
code/docs) can be done without additional review. Copyright year adjustments are the examples of
this. Just say that in Fix Request.

However, the changes that massage the backport to fit older APIs need to be reviewed for sanity. The
internal APIs are not overly consistent at times, and the thing that you might think is a trivial
substitution might just not be so. Another pair of eyes to look at that addon is good to have.

Aside, I think it is a good style (though optional) to post the diff between the upstream patch and
the backport -- it seems low-overhead when there is the mq patch on top. This would also make
reviews much easier, and probably fits the backporting workflow too. That is what I do anyway.

-Aleksey