Side note: it's very annoying to have Time Warner Cable decide to take your internet down in the middle of writing a reply :-/ On 09/08/2015 11:33 PM, Linus Torvalds wrote: > On Tue, Sep 8, 2015 at 8:08 PM, Doug Ledford wrote: >> >> With a comment that said "I can carry this merge forward, no further >> action is necessary on your part". That combined with my lack of deep >> internal knowledge of what it is that Stephen is doing made me go "Ok, >> he says don't do anything, so I won't change it." > > So quite frankly, Stephen does a really good job at merging and most > of his merges are very on point. He's been doing a lot of them as part > of linux-next, and has seen more conflicts than just about anybody > else. > > But I think to him it's mostly just an issue of "get the right end > result". I don't think he goes: "this merge conflict is a result of a > breakdown of the development process". > > Conversely, to me, one of the main reasons I want to do those merges > is exactly because I think conflicts are more about the development > process issues than about "just getting the right end result". Yes, > obviously I want to get the rigth end result too, but I very much > react to how/why the conflict happened in the first place. The end > result is _almost_ secondary, although 99% of the time the primary > issue doesn't really even raise its head. > > So I'm upset not because the conflict is hard to resolve (it isn't), > but because I feel this was really badly handled. > > Yes, the fact that Mellanox people sent two different patches to two > different maintainers that did the same thing in two different ways is > odd. Matan and Jiri are cc'd, and I think that whole thing just smells > really bad. > > But at the same time, I expect more of maintainers, and I don't see > any sign that David and the networking people were notified about the > _other_ patch to _their_ subsystem. Me telling Matan to Cc: netdev on patches related to their subsystem: http://marc.info/?l=linux-rdma&m=143398479529819&w=4 Above was v5 of the patchset. Both the v6 and v7 of the patchset had netdev Cc:ed on the cover letter and at least the first three patches. Here's the v7 cover and the first three patches in the netdev archives: http://marc.info/?l=linux-netdev&m=143827046913908&w=4 http://marc.info/?l=linux-netdev&m=143827047413915&w=4 http://marc.info/?l=linux-netdev&m=143827052913936&w=4 http://marc.info/?l=linux-netdev&m=143827055013953&w=4 Here I am saying I've pulled the patchset in in the netdev archives: http://marc.info/?l=linux-netdev&m=143834704701705&w=4 Here Jason Gunthorpe is asking me if I was going to take netdev stuff without an ack from netdev in the netdev archives: http://marc.info/?l=linux-netdev&m=143836033706501&w=4 And here is my response to Jason, again, in the netdev archives: http://marc.info/?l=linux-netdev&m=143836450808174&w=4 Here is the initial notification from Stephen on the merge conflict: http://marc.info/?l=linux-next&m=144072523831647&w=4 Here's is Jiri's response (on linux-netdev, but according to my records also direct Cc: Dave Miller): http://marc.info/?l=linux-netdev&m=144074372902869&w=4 > The fact that you weren't aware of the other patch in the networking > subsystem is kind of to be expected. You're not the network > maintainer, so why would you? But exactly because you're not the > networking maintainer, I would have expected you to check with him > when you apply patches to generic networking code. See above. This was done. > This time it conflicted, and I noticed, and I went "this is not how > kernel development is supposed to go". I didn't switch up for the newer patch, that didn't help. But otherwise, I did what was needed. > But say that the other networking patch hadn't even existed: in that > case I *still* shouldn't have gotten a patch to net/core/dev.c from > you without any sign that David had ack'ed it (or at the very least > been notified, even if he hadn't reacted). And such a thing wouldn't have happened. > See? I see perfectly well Linus. I am not new to engineering. You have stated several times that I'm missing the point, or do I see your point, please understand mine: I *did* the things you are assuming I didn't do. The record is in the public archives. I didn't make a big deal about it because it *isn't* a big deal unless you assume that I'm running around nilly-willy throwing shit at the wall and hoping to make a painting. As I knew very well that's not what I'm doing, *I* didn't have those assumptions, and therefore I didn't think this merge fixup was a big deal. As the efforts to bring this to the network maintainer's attention is in the record above, you will likewise find if you talk to Greg K-H that I worked with him both publicly and privately on the changes I made in the drivers/staging area. I do now how to keep responsible parties informed when I'm working in their domain. -- Doug Ledford GPG KeyID: 0E572FDD