Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

I like to click through the PRs like many of us here, I'm sure.  Problem is I'm a laymen when it comes to any kind of coding so I'm limited to understanding what's going on in a PR based on the context of the comments of said PR.  I have a few questions about old or dormant Pull Requests.  I noticed there are PRs from as far back as December of 2014.  Do PRs have expiration dates?  If not, then what happens to a PR when a developer stops working on them?  Does someone else pick up the baton or are they forever in limbo?  Do you guys ever have to try contacting a developer that has gone MIA on a PR?

I guess I'm really curious about what the process is like when there's a good idea that doesn't get completed because so-and-so stops development.  It appears that Github allows you to write code for the PR, but I'm sure there's some kind of decorum for when it's appropriate to just take over the work that someone has started.  Anyway, that's just me wondering about the secret of life Dolphin Developers!

PRs don't have expiration dates per se, but if a PR isn't being updated by the author and it can't get merged in its current state, it will be closed sooner or later. Often nothing happens after that, but sometimes (especially when it's an important PR or it's close to being done) other developers make a new PR based on it, like in these cases:

https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/2517
https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/3139