There are lots of big projects that use an email-based code review
workflow: the gcc family (gdb, libstdc++, and gcc itself), git, Linux, Mercurial... You submit the patch to the
mailing list and people comment on your patch inline. You submit
updated patches as necessary until everything looks good and approved.
It's pretty low-tech, but like plain text itself, it's also very easy
to participate. There's no setup involved other than an email client.
And rewrites don't require you to add more commits, thus cluttering
history; or to `git push --force`, thus destroying the previous
version of the patch that people had commented on. It's also trivial
to cherry-pick and rebase: just apply the patch. You can do this even
with a VCS that doesn't have rebase or cherry-pick commands.
There are definite advantages to the email-based system.
It's pretty low-tech, but like plain text itself, it's also very easy to participate. There's no setup involved other than an email client. And rewrites don't require you to add more commits, thus cluttering history; or to `git push --force`, thus destroying the previous version of the patch that people had commented on. It's also trivial to cherry-pick and rebase: just apply the patch. You can do this even with a VCS that doesn't have rebase or cherry-pick commands.
There are definite advantages to the email-based system.