Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] Maintainer Handbook: Subsystem Profile

From: Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz>
To: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org>,
	Dave Jiang <dave.jiang@intel.com>,
	Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@ffwll.ch>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>,
	Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>,
	Vishal Verma <vishal.l.verma@intel.com>,
	Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
	Ross Zwisler <zwisler@kernel.org>, Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>,
	"Tobin C. Harding" <me@tobin.cc>,
	"Martin K. Petersen" <martin.petersen@oracle.com>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
	Steve French <stfrench@microsoft.com>,
	Olof Johansson <olof@lixom.net>,
	linux-nvdimm@lists.01.org,
	ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH 0/3] Maintainer Handbook: Subsystem Profile
Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2018 11:57:54 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20181125105754.GB25471@amd> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <154225759358.2499188.15268218778137905050.stgit@dwillia2-desk3.amr.corp.intel.com>

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On Wed 2018-11-14 20:53:13, Dan Williams wrote:
> At a recently concluded session at the Linux Plumbers Conference I
> proposed a "Subsystem Profile" as a document that a maintainer can
> provide to set contributor expectations and provide fodder for a
> discussion between maintainers about the merits of different maintainer
> policies.
> 
> For those that did not attend, the goal of the Subsystem Profile, and the
> Maintainer Handbook more generally, is to provide a desk reference for
> maintainers both new and experienced. The session introduction was:
> 
>     The first rule of kernel maintenance is that there are no hard and
>     fast rules. That state of affairs is both a blessing and a curse. It
>     has served the community well to be adaptable to the different
>     people and different problem spaces that inhabit the kernel
>     community. However, that variability also leads to inconsistent
>     experiences for contributors, little to no guidance for new
>     contributors, and unnecessary stress on current maintainers. There
>     are quite a few of people who have been around long enough to make
>     enough mistakes that they have gained some hard earned proficiency.
>     However if the kernel community expects to keep growing it needs to
>     be able both scale the maintainers it has and ramp new ones without
>     necessarily let them make a decades worth of mistakes to learn the
>     ropes. 
> 
> To be clear, the proposed document does not impose or suggest new
> rules. Instead it provides an outlet to document the unwritten rules
> and policies in effect for each subsystem, and that each subsystem
> might decide differently for whatever reason.

Sounds like a new rules to me :-(, making submitting simple patches
harder.

It would be good if the rules were similar / same accross the
subsystems, documenting "it is okay to be different" is not really helpful.

									Pavel
-- 
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html

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