From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from perceval.ideasonboard.com (perceval.ideasonboard.com [213.167.242.64]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 178A61BEF6 for ; Tue, 22 Aug 2023 11:32:06 +0000 (UTC) Received: from pendragon.ideasonboard.com (213-243-189-158.bb.dnainternet.fi [213.243.189.158]) by perceval.ideasonboard.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 092CADD9; Tue, 22 Aug 2023 13:30:47 +0200 (CEST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=ideasonboard.com; s=mail; t=1692703848; bh=45N7tM1nidTATOaemcXiSWYpukDGHBbZjk/T4bUJj+g=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=YK289l8Xc7cjrL2fTa1Raw63FV7jEKzfoF6VV8tKzqNLwSbykn3CouBF/wJ5o7L+z GH8ENEMBNQRAhcvYnGIcvaB8s6j36ZWTVWQJ/kXZmK8UsrE/80nhK/4wYiTPxV+IWO JR2gP0m2Ea3/NbX6y9wFyMvZ0WdttDB9+g59O+s4= Date: Tue, 22 Aug 2023 14:32:12 +0300 From: Laurent Pinchart To: Leon Romanovsky Cc: Jan Kara , Vegard Nossum , Linus Torvalds , Jakub Kicinski , Linus Walleij , Alexei Starovoitov , Andrew Lunn , Luis Chamberlain , Josef Bacik , ksummit@lists.linux.dev, Jeff Layton , Song Liu Subject: Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Maintainer burnout Message-ID: <20230822113212.GP10135@pendragon.ideasonboard.com> References: <44814ed5-7bab-4e56-9ca6-189870f97f41@lunn.ch> <20230817081957.1287b966@kernel.org> <20230818080949.7b17b0d5@kernel.org> <20230819064537.GM22185@unreal> <20230822094613.bxtsjlnkhaypoflj@quack3> <20230822110523.GB6029@unreal> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: ksummit@lists.linux.dev List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20230822110523.GB6029@unreal> On Tue, Aug 22, 2023 at 02:05:23PM +0300, Leon Romanovsky wrote: > On Tue, Aug 22, 2023 at 11:46:13AM +0200, Jan Kara wrote: > > On Mon 21-08-23 21:23:18, Vegard Nossum wrote: > > > On 8/19/23 08:45, Leon Romanovsky wrote: > > > > It is worth to try to get honest feedback from active developers/contributors/vendors > > > > what is their "real" excuse for not doing code review. > > > > > > > > I saw in this thread about "have no time to do code review" answers and we > > > > all can relate to it, but IMHO it is just an excuse and not the real reason. > > > > Especially for a people who are employed by big corporations to do their > > > > upstream work. > > > > > > For some drive-by or would-be reviewers, at least, I think part of the > > > problem is perverse or misaligned incentives. > > > > > > If you write code and your patches are accepted in the kernel, it counts > > > towards your commit count, which is a metric that people look at, for > > > better or worse (probably worse). > > > > > > When you review a patch and you find some problem with it, the patch > > > will NOT get accepted in the kernel (at least not in that form), and > > > your name will NOT appear in the git log. So in a way, in order for > > > your contribution to get recorded, you have to give the patch a > > > passing grade -OR- you are now on the hook to keep reviewing every > > > following iteration of the patch until it's in a state where you're > > > completely sure it doesn't have any problems. > > > > > > (Of course, if you just rubber-stamp your Reviewed-by: on everything > > > then you are bound to be found out sooner or later -- or at the very > > > least seen as an unreliable reviewer.) > > > > > > But let's assume you don't give out your Reviewed-by: without having > > > REALLY checked the patch thoroughly. Even then, mistakes can slip in. > > > In a way, being a reviewer and missing something critical is even > > > worse than being the author and missing something critical. Is it even > > > worth putting your Reviewed-by: on something if you're not 100% sure > > > this patch is not going to cause an issue? Are people going to trust > > > you in the future if you make a mistake in your review? > > > > > > Let's say you're completely sure you found an issue with the patch. Why > > > not just stay silent, hope that nobody catches it, and then submit your > > > own patch later to fix it? That will get your name in the log. Even > > > worse, if it's a security issue you can maybe write an exploit for it > > > and either get a bounty from Google or sell it for serious $$$ to > > > various malicious actors. [Note that I'm not saying most people would do > > > this; I don't know. I am just using it as an example to show that the > > > incentives are disproportionate.] > > > > > > The incentives that remain (as far as I can tell) are: > > > > > > 1) you get familiar with a specific part of the kernel, and > > > 2) you get goodwill and recognition from other kernel developers. > > > > I agree it is good to create positive incentives to provide good review. > > But I believe what really makes people do good reviews is the sense of > > common responsibility. > > Agree as long as "people" word includes whole community together with > maintainers to share common responsibility. > > Some maintainers feel too much ownership other their subsystems and it > causes to the lack of trust from everybody involved in the process and > common responsibility can't be built in that subsystems at all. Do we need to organize a workshop for maintainers on how to stop clinging to power ? I'm sure I could learn something there. -- Regards, Laurent Pinchart