Re: [MAINTAINERS / KERNEL SUMMIT] AI patch review tools

[Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch>]

> We don't even have the resolve to get contributors to run checkpatch.pl
> (a freely available and imminently accessible tool).
> I think it would be illustrative to figure out what the barriers are to that, or what a proper
> incentive structure would be (and why we're missing it), before tackling the AI review issue.

The netdev CI does run checkpatch, and makes it obvious to netdev
Maintainers it fails. And this results in push back to submitters,
when we reject the patches pointing out checkpatch issues, and don't
bother looking at the patch any deeper. If you hang out around netdev,
you learn it is a waste of time posting patches which are checkpatch
unclean, you are not going to get any meaningful review other than
sort out all the trivial stuff.

> What bugs me about the current discussion is the implication that we're willing to just
> add more cost to maintainers or the workflow infrastructure, when the cost should
> IMHO, be born by contributors.

I partially disagree with this. If you do push back as a Maintainer,
initially only point out the trivial stuff in a low overhead way,
those developers who are going to be around a while learn to run all
the tools themselves. It makes their workflow more productive not
getting immediate rejects with nothing 'useful' other than fix
checkpatch.

But i do agree with you, Maintainers need to also run all these tools,
just to know the developers have run the tool and fixed all the issues
before submission. So there are costs for everybody. But for big
subsystems, it is mostly automated, so does not cost too much human
time for Maintainers.

	Andrew