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 20C3CAAC for ; Thu, 16 Jul 2015 16:25:11 +0000 (UTC) Received: from seldrel01.sonyericsson.com (seldrel01.sonyericsson.com [37.139.156.2]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 475F5251 for ; Thu, 16 Jul 2015 16:25:10 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: <55A7DAD8.2080902@sonymobile.com> Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:24:56 -0700 From: Tim Bird MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Steven Rostedt 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> <55A7C7FE.6000604@sonymobile.com> <20150716094125.16cdda73@lwn.net> <55A7D73F.4020105@sonymobile.com> <20150716121620.65ce6daa@gandalf.local.home> In-Reply-To: <20150716121620.65ce6daa@gandalf.local.home> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Jason Cooper , Dan Carpenter , "ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org" 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 09:16 AM, Steven Rostedt wrote: > On Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:09:35 -0700 > Tim Bird wrote: > >> Here's just an anecdote to support this. There's a highly qualified >> developer at Sony I was talking to this week, who said that when he >> sees a bug in the mainline kernel, he usually just ignores it because >> the hassle-factor of submitting a patch is too high. > > Ouch! But that's still no excuse to ignore it. There should be no > hassle factor in reporting a bug. Sending a patch along with it is a > plus. It at least demonstrates what is wrong. Now it may be a different > matter if you want your patch to make it into the kernel. > > I've sent hundreds of patches to different subsystem maintainers (and > even Linus), where the patch was mostly used to show where the bug was, > and my version of the fix, but the final fix was authored by someone > else with just a Reported-by contributed to me. I'm fine with that, but > others may not be. > > I heard that IBM once had a method where if you submitted a change, and > that change made it into kernel, even if the final change was not > authored by you, you still got credit for it. That's a fabulous way of > looking at contributions and giving credit to your employees. That's really good feedback. I've often assumed that if you saw something that needed fixing, you had a responsibility to properly format a patch so as not to burden the maintainer. I've labeled my own "best-effort, but-probably-not-mainlinable" patches as [RFC PATCH..]. Would it be worth having a convention for that sort of thing? In other contexts, there have been suggestions that even known-to-be-unnacceptable patches be submitted to lkml, just so there's a public record of some driver, feature extension or workaround, that people can evaluate or fix up later. What do people think of this (if they were marked as such)? -- Tim