From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mail.kernel.org (mail.kernel.org [198.145.29.99]) by mx.groups.io with SMTP id smtpd.web10.8450.1608618638943219566 for ; Mon, 21 Dec 2020 22:30:39 -0800 Authentication-Results: mx.groups.io; dkim=pass header.i=@kernel.org header.s=k20201202 header.b=Fgox6j7M; spf=pass (domain: kernel.org, ip: 198.145.29.99, mailfrom: leon@kernel.org) Received: by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 76B382255F; Tue, 22 Dec 2020 06:30:37 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1608618638; bh=qiPV5psswwC0ZCuu6W0Gc3ZV79CfDLfCveygZiuJgdU=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=Fgox6j7MLv8k6n5DVQTdSeq96w0BtnLeBTzYT3dOW8y7+UesR9LTYTOHn3Wj7mC8q 7DCoccn/HvPj2+n1rVWnrMkmdZ0j8Y0Eplyox39LysHTT9pDYKWbStdeNixnggiSfS 8Xpo8D3iN0WUZBGBHSlvsicYhHzV78VEfbBWAz0dHQrSb2cxVMJdQhrUsJKZDu7u+C uI4FUlDDk3kpJB1KXggVstj4Lzm8GZsBdzs9r6c8cRKtdPLMkIZ/mnibh/JGdaFLiN Ggi/EGYm01YoQlilPAwJ6csezTol8X4Zo4E3WUURVuYpxVBGqGyEuY0+qseDCn4y+H yc4muh9A8QwQA== Date: Tue, 22 Dec 2020 08:30:34 +0200 From: "Leon Romanovsky" To: Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo Cc: Jason Gunthorpe , Jakub Kicinski , James Bottomley , toke@toke.dk, Konstantin Ryabitsev , users@linux.kernel.org, tools@linux.kernel.org, Jens Axboe Subject: Re: [kernel.org users] b4: encouraging using the cover letter in merge commits? Message-ID: <20201222063034.GC3128@unreal> References: <877dpeol5w.fsf@toke.dk> <87y2hum0t0.fsf@toke.dk> <20201219092126.5633d02f@kicinski-fedora-pc1c0hjn.dhcp.thefacebook.com> <20201221190552.GS5487@ziepe.ca> <20201221213012.GB433286@kernel.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <20201221213012.GB433286@kernel.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 06:30:12PM -0300, Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo wrote: > Em Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 03:05:52PM -0400, Jason Gunthorpe escreveu: > > On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 09:21:26AM -0800, Jakub Kicinski wrote: > > > On Sat, 19 Dec 2020 09:03:36 -0800 James Bottomley wrote: > > > > > I agree that the cover letter is useful more often than not and > > > > > ideally it would be included in most cases. In netdev/bpf land the > > > > > maintainers do this by always creating a merge commit when applying a > > > > > multi-part series; here's Daniel applying one of mine, for instance: > > > > > > > > > > https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net-next.git/commit/?id=4e083fdfa39db29bbc7725e229e701867d0da183 > > > > > > > > > > I personally think this practice is pretty nice, and so I was hoping > > > > > that supporting this workflow in b4 could be a way to encourage other > > > > > maintainers to take up the practice as well :) > > > > > > > > I've got to say that creating a spurious merge for the cover letter > > > > looks even more tortuous than creating an empty commit. What > > > > advantages does this have over the existing link tag practice which is > > > > the one that we now use instead of the empty commit? > > > > > > May be a chicken and an egg problem in case of other subsystems. > > > > > > DaveM started creating those merge commits long before Links were > > > a thing (let alone lore). That gave netdev developers the ability > > > to provide a high level description of their work, reasons, goals > > > in the cover letter, rather than one of the commit messages. For > > > a series with changes finely split for ease of review it's often > > > awkward to pick on which commit to put that information. > > > > > > Obviously the cover letter information may be made available via > > > the Link, but there's obvious value in seeing the information in > > > the repo, after all we don't replace commit messages with links. > > > My biggest problem with the cover letters is while the are in the > > repository, someplace, I've never actually found one while hunting > > around in the git history for clues, eg with 'git blame' or 'git log > > log -p' > > Well, they don't get merged, this is the point of this thread :-\ In the netdev flow, the cover letters are merged. See commit 28f53159e121 ("Merge branch 'vsock-add-flags-field-in-the-vsock-address'") Thanks