Re: Replacing Link trailers

[Doug Anderson <dianders@chromium.org>]

Hi,

On Mon, Oct 13, 2025 at 4:53 AM James Bottomley
<James.Bottomley@hansenpartnership.com> wrote:
>
> There has been a lot of discussion on the tooling list about how the
> loss of link trailers has updated both tooling and triaging issues.
> Konstantin has proposed a tool to get around this, but while that's in
> development, I propose a discussion about making Link (or some
> alternative tag) into the pointer that would work for everyone.

A few random ideas to throw out there:

1. Could we submit a change to the "git" tool to allow something like
the "Link" tag but hide it from the default settings? I'm thinking
something like how "git" only shows the Author/AuthorDate by default
until you say "--format=fuller" and then it also shows you the
Commit/CommitDate. Then we just tell Linus to keep the setting off and
everyone is happy.

2. Given how "everyone" thinks AI is the best thing ever, could AI
help the patch trackers find the version history of the patch / links
to old versions? So when you click on a Link it takes you someplace
where AI has already found links to all the old patches and perhaps
even summarized the mailing list discussion? Maybe this is a terrible
idea and we'd all get flamed the moment the AI gives some bad info,
but somehow it seemed wrong to not suggest an AI solution in this day
and age. :-P

3. Could folks somehow just stage an intervention and tell Linus that
he's wrong and just has to accept the Link tag that he finds useless?
;-)  (Hi Linus! I'm sure you're not reading this, right?) While I
certainly can't consider my opinion to hold much weight, it sure seems
like quite a few prominent people in the community find the Link tag
very useful and are sad to see it go. Given all the people that find
the tag useful, it kinda feels like it could stay? Even if Linus has a
10:1 or 100:1 vote in the topic, from what I gather keeping the "Link"
tag would still win (assuming people that don't give a crap just
abstain instead of voting "no"). Not that this is a democracy or
anything...


-Doug