Re: RFC: Superseded-by: follow-up trailer

[Alex Elder <elder@ieee.org>]

On 4/13/21 3:49 PM, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
> Hi, all:
> 
> B4 (and git-patchwork-bot) try to deal with series revisions, but the process
> is not infallible due to needing to guess whether one series obsoletes another
> via weak string matches (subject + author). If v2 arrives with a modified
> subject than in v1 (even if it's a typo fix), or from a different email
> address, then auto-matching will fail.
> 
> I would like to propose a "Superseded-by" follow-up trailer to help strengthen
> the link between series revisions. The trailer needs to be sent as a follow-up
> to the cover letter or first patch of the previous series.
> 
>      Superseded-by: [url-ending-with/message-id-of-next-version]

Could "Supercedes: [url]" posted with the new version work?	-Alex

> 
> Example:
> 
> After submitting a new series revision, a contributor sends a follow-up email
> to the previous series submission, adding a single follow-up trailer, e.g.:
> 
> 
>      Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 0/2] frobdrv: reduce frob latency
> 
>      [...]
>      > Please submit a new revision that fixes this problem.
>      >
>      > Nacked-by: Maine Tainer <mtainer@example.com>
> 
>      Hi,
> 
>      I just submitted a v3 with these fixes.
>      
>      Superseded-by: https://lore.kernel.org/r/foo-bar-3333-1-git@example.net
> 
> Of course, I don't expect a lot of folks to remember to do this, but I hope to
> incorporate this into the upcoming "auto-pr-exploder" tool that helps folks
> turn pull requests into well-formed patch series. In the same vein, when
> git-patchwork-bot recognizes that a series is superseded by a newer version,
> it can send an automated follow-up to the list to help indicate to the
> maintainer that a newer version of the patch/series is available.
> 
> When b4 encounters this trailer, it can issue a warning to the maintainer that
> they aren't retrieving the latest series revision (and can automatically grab
> the new one if instructed to do so).
> 
> Please let me know if this sounds reasonable.
> 
> -K
>