From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (smtp1.linux-foundation.org [172.17.192.35]) by mail.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 88A0FABF for ; Thu, 16 Jul 2015 15:05:58 +0000 (UTC) Received: from seldrel01.sonyericsson.com (seldrel01.sonyericsson.com [37.139.156.2]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id E0C85101 for ; Thu, 16 Jul 2015 15:05:57 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: <55A7C7FE.6000604@sonymobile.com> Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 08:04:30 -0700 From: Tim Bird MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Steven Rostedt , Mark Brown References: <20150708114011.3a1f1861@noble> <2879113.fraeuJIr2M@avalon> <20150709193718.GD9169@vmdeb7> <20150710143641.GW4341@mwanda> <20150710160714.GL111846@vmdeb7> <20150710222351.GA28632@kroah.com> <20150711000034.GU111846@vmdeb7> <20150711001348.GA30675@kroah.com> <20150711055441.GA6316@sudip-PC> <20150715212043.775be5d2@gandalf.local.home> <20150716132551.GH4039@sirena.org.uk> <20150716094720.2bf9f5ac@gandalf.local.home> In-Reply-To: <20150716094720.2bf9f5ac@gandalf.local.home> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: "ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org" , Dan Carpenter , Jason Cooper Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Recruitment (Reviewers, Testers, Maintainers, Hobbyists) List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On 07/16/2015 06:47 AM, Steven Rostedt wrote: > One of the issues with newcomers coming to development of the Linux > kernel, is that every maintainer is different. We should be trying > harder to let people know what we prefer. Every maintainer expects > something different, but it's up to the maintainer to explicitly let > others know what they want. You can't expect everyone to read your mind. I agree with this completely. When you switch systems (which I've done something like 5 times in the last 2 years), you are essentially a newbie in that new system. How about putting some notes in the MAINTAINER file for things like this, that some get_maintainer.pl option could show? We could use a I: prefix, for "Instructions:" (only because 'N:' is already used.) I'm not sure the what types of per-maintainer differences would be good to list, but at least the two described here would be good: - ping delay preference - ping style (whole patch or just an alert) preference I think there may be some other things that we could recommend, but maybe it would be good to use free-form instructions for a while and see what patterns emerge. A side benefit of this would be that maintainers could see what their colleagues are doing, which might help spread knowledge of useful practices. -- Tim