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SubjectRe: [PATCH] kill access_ok() call from copy_siginfo_to_user() that we might as well avoid.
On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Linus Torvalds wrote:

>
> [ Linux-kernel added back into the cc, because I actually think this is
> important. ]
>
> On Tue, 21 Dec 2004, Jesper Juhl wrote:
> >
> > Should I just stop attemting to make these trivial cleanups/fixes/whatever
> > patches? are they more noice than gain? am I being a pain to more skilled
> > people on lkml or can you all live with my, sometimes quite ignorant,
> > patches?
> > I do try to learn from the feedback I get, and I like to think that my
> > patches are gradually getting a bit better, but if I'm more of a bother
> > than a help I might as well stop.
>
> To me, the biggest thing with small patches is not necessarily the patch
> itself. I think that much more important than the patch is the fact that
> people get used to the notion that they can change the kernel - not just
> on an intellectual level ("I understand that the GPL means that I have the
> right to change my kernel"), but on a more practical level ("Hey, I did
> that small change").
>
Right, that actually does give one a warm fuzzy feeling inside once in a
while and encourages you to carry on.


> And whether it ends up being the right thing or not, that's how everybody
> starts out. It's simply not possible to "get into" the kernel without
> starting out small, and making mistakes. So I very much encourage it, even
> if I often don't have the time to actually worry about small patches, and
> I try to get suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hother developers like Rusty to try to
> acts as quality control and a "gathering place".
>
> Btw, this is why even "trivial patches" really do take time - they often
> have trivial mistakes in them, and it's not just because there are more
> inexperienced people doing them - most of _my_ mistakes tend to be at the
> truly idiotic level, just because it "looked obvious", and then there's
> something that I miss.
>
> So at one level I absolutely _hate_ trivial patches: they take time and
> effort to merge, and individually the patch itself is often not really
> obviously "worth it". But at the same time, I think the trivial patches
> are among the most important ones - exactly because they are the "entry"
> patches for every new developer.
>
> I just try really hard to find somebody else to worry about them ;)
>
Heh, quite understandable - I wouldn't want to be at the other end of your
mailbox.

> (It's not a thankful job, btw, exactly because it _looks_ so trivial. It's
> easy to point to 99 patches that are absolutely obvious, and complain
> about the fact that they haven't been merged. But they take time to merge
> exactly because of that one patch that _did_ look obvious, but wasn't.
> And actually, it's usually not 99:1, it's usually more like 10:1 or
> something).
>
> So please don't stop. Yes, those trivial patches _are_ a bother. Damn,
> they are _horrible_. But at the same time, the devil is in the detail, and
> they are needed in the long run. Both the patches themselves, and the
> people that grew up on them.
>
Ok, thank you so much for that reply. I'll try to keep the pain to a
minimum, but I'll keep on doing the trivial (and hopefully in the
long run the not-so trivial) patches :)
You just brought some courage/spirit/enthusiasm back to a disheartened
kernel-hacker-wannabe ;-) Thank you!


--
Jesper


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