so, I've submitted a patch to JIRA, and the changes are sizeable. Now, while I wait for someone to review the patch and perhaps check them into the trunk, I am essentially not using source control: if I change a file affected by the patch, I cannot make a commit and store in a commit message why I made the change. If the patch goes in, it will be a big ball of code with no history; I will have to remember what I changed and why, a long time after the fact.
If I was using a DCVS, I could commit all I liked to my local repo, storing up a history of my changes, and this would be available when the changes were pulled in. This is very frustrating. I think it makes it a lot harder to develop patches when you are not a committer. And it reduces the quality of the review process, because the history is not there. Gentlemen, the time has come for a better way!
