[karlding]

I've submitted a few minor PRs (doc changes, typing changes, test fixes, some small features) over the last few years as a non-core developer. To be fair, some changes were reviewed promptly so the problem of reviews taking a long time doesn't necessarily reflect on Python as a whole.

In my experience, typeshed changes were always reviewed promptly and Mariatta reviewed a bunch of simple doc fixes within a couple of days.

Contributing to libraries that didn't have an established owner definitely took longer to get reviewed (even more so for features that only a subset of developers would use). I sent an email on the mailing list to follow up after a while and Guido ended up merging one of the changes. For another PR (to fix a broken test that had been broken for years) a core developer assigned various reviewers, who all unassigned themselves. After a year of no activity, I then followed up directly with a core developer during their office hours and we walked through the review together.

Being a volunteer-run project means that they work on things during their free time, and during my discussion with one of the core developers they highlighted that since Python is volunteer-run, they can't really force anyone to do reviews—people just work on whatever they want, whenever they want. I think that's fair, but it certainly biases away from people who submit a few contributions outside of the core developer group. We also talked about the recommendations in the dev guide about reviewing code as a non-core developer, since it seemed like a sort of chicken and egg problem where people who aren't core developers won't/aren't able to review code. And even if they do, their review isn't necessarily conclusive to getting a change reviewed and approved by a core developer, who likely will just ignore their review (since there's no credibility).