Messages in this thread | | | From | Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] MAINTAINERS: Start using the 'reviewer' (R) tag | Date | Wed, 28 Oct 2015 17:26:10 +0100 |
| |
[ this time with full Cc: & context preserved ]
Hi,
On Wednesday, October 28, 2015 08:24:46 AM Lee Jones wrote: > On Tue, 2015-10-27 at 18:15 +0000, Lee Jones wrote: > > On Tue, 27 Oct 2015, Sebastian Reichel wrote: > > > On Tue, Oct 27, 2015 at 03:42:37PM +0000, Lee Jones wrote: > > > > Since eafbaac ("MAINTAINERS: Add "R:" designated-reviewers tag") we > > > > have been able to tag specific people as Reviewers. These are key > > > > individuals who are tasked with or volunteer to review code submitted > > > > to a subsystem or specific file. However, according to MAINTAINERS > > > > we have 1046 Maintainers and only a mere 22 Reviewers. I believe > > > > these numbers to be incorrect, as many of these Maintainers are in > > > > fact Reviewers. > > Most entries in MAINTAINERS seem to be vanity entries than actual > active participants. A person typically writes a driver, adds a > MAINTAINER entry, then forgets about it and/or the hardware becomes > outdated. > > This I agree with. > > On Wed, 28 Oct 2015, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote: > > 2015-10-28 3:44 GMT+09:00 Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>: > > > On Tue, 2015-10-27 at 18:15 +0000, Lee Jones wrote: > > > > On Tue, 27 Oct 2015, Sebastian Reichel wrote:> > > > > > > I think you should CC the people, which are changed from "M:" to > > > > > "R:", though. > > > > > > > > Yes, makes sense. > > > > > > > > I'd like to collect some Maintainer Acks first though. > > > > > > I think people from organizations like Samsung are actual > > > maintainers not reviewers. > > So this all hinges on how we are describing Maintainers and Reviewers. > > My personal definition (until convinced otherwise) is that Reviewers > care about their particular subsystem and/or files. They conduct code > reviews to ensure nothing gets broken and the code base stays in best > possible state of worthiness. On the other hand Maintainers usually > conduct themselves as Reviewers but also have 'maintainership' duties > as well; such as applying patches, *maintaining*, testing, rebasing, > etc, an upstream branch and ultimately sending pull-requests to higher > level Maintainers i.e. Linus. Maintainers also have the ultimate say > (unless over-ruled by Linus etc) over what gets applied. > > > > Their drivers are not thrown over a wall and forgotten. > > > > At least for Samsung Multifunction PMIC drivers (and some of Maxim > > MUICs and PMICs) these are actively used by us in existing and new > > products. They are also continuously extended and actually maintained. > > This means that it is not only about review of new patches but also > > about caring that nothing will become broken. > > Exactly. This what I expect of any good code Reviewer. > > > I would prefer to leave the "SAMSUNG MULTIFUNCTION PMIC DEVICE > > DRIVERS" entry as is - maintainers. > > But you aren't maintaining the driver i.e. you don't collect patches > and *maintain* them on an upstream branch. Granted some of you guys > are doing a great job of maintaining branches on your downstream or > BSP kernels, but conduct a Reviewer type role for upstream. > > You guys are pushing back like this is some kind of demotion. That's > not the case at all. All it does is better describe the (very worthy) > function you *actually* provide.
It is actually a demotion from my POV:
* "Reviewer" doesn't accurately describe the job of doing all the needed testing, bug-fixing and additional contributions that is often done by people without their own branches.
* You don't know internal policies of all companies involved in Linux Kernel development. "Maintainer" is a well known term and sometimes person's job status or "key performance indicators" may depend on it.
Best regards, -- Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz Samsung R&D Institute Poland Samsung Electronics
| |