Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] Fixing the Kernel Janitors project

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To: James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@...>
Cc: <ksummit-2008-discuss@...>, linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...>
Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 10:27 pm

On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 12:20:12PM -0500, James Bottomley wrote:

I suspect many of the people contributing to this thread aren't on the
kernel-janitors list.  They're only seeing janitorial-style patches hit
them in the face, and they know they don't like it.


Part of the problem is that whitespace fixing patches are treated like
they're real patches.  We get conflicts with real patches, they're pinged
like they're real patches, and the contributors name gets put in the
shortlog like it was a real patch.

I liked the trivial service that Rusty had setup.  Patch started getting
conflicts?  Dropped.  Pinged?  By an automated device, not by akpm.  We
didn't have contributor names back then, but maybe we should anonymise
whitespace patches -- just accept that something that could have been
done by a machine isn't worth attaching a name to.


Also, a lot of the trivial patches don't come across the janitors list
first, so shutting the project down will not, IMO, reduce the problem.
So, most obvious, but wrong ;-)


That's a good idea.  We'd all be happier if more people spent time on
bug triage, investigation and fixing.


There are some of those things going on in the current janitors project,
it's just they're drowned out by the noise.  I'd like to mention a few.

Mark Asselstine has been working to remove the last remnants of cli/sti
from the kernel.  I believe patches to get rid of them all are now
either merged or sitting in trees waiting to be merged.  I found him
receptive to feedback and willing to sit down and really analyse a
driver to figure out what was going on.  If he chooses to continue his
kernel hacking career, he'll be a great asset.

Julia Lawall has a fun tool that spots patterns which are buggy.  I've
worked on a number of patches with her recently where we compare
unsigned integers < 0.  Again, we need people to look at the piece of
code in context to figure out what the original author meant (not too
dissimilar from the coverity reports).

-- 
Intel are signing my paycheques ... these opinions are still mine
"Bill, look, we understand that you're interested in selling us this
operating system, but compare it to ours.  We can't possibly take such
a retrograde step."
--
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Messages in current thread:
[Ksummit-2008-discuss] Fixing the Kernel Janitors project, James Bottomley, (Wed May 28, 1:20 pm)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] Fixing the Kernel Janitors project, James Bottomley, (Thu May 29, 10:26 am)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] Fixing the Kernel Janitors project, Benjamin Herrenschmidt, (Thu May 29, 2:17 am)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] Fixing the Kernel Janitors project, Benjamin Herrenschmidt, (Thu May 29, 9:20 pm)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] Fixing the Kernel Janitors project, Benjamin Herrenschmidt, (Sun Jun 1, 7:56 pm)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] Fixing the Kernel Janitors project, Benjamin Herrenschmidt, (Thu May 29, 9:25 pm)
RFC: Moving firmware blobs out of the kernel., David Woodhouse, (Thu May 29, 12:15 pm)
Re: RFC: Moving firmware blobs out of the kernel., Benjamin Herrenschmidt, (Thu May 29, 9:22 pm)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] RFC: Moving firmware blobs out of..., Mauro Carvalho Chehab, (Sun Jun 8, 7:13 am)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] RFC: Moving firmware blobs out of..., Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo, (Fri May 30, 9:47 am)
Re: RFC: Moving firmware blobs out of the kernel., Jeff Garzik, (Thu May 29, 3:12 pm)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] RFC: Moving firmware blobs out of..., Benjamin Herrenschmidt, (Thu May 29, 9:27 pm)
Re: RFC: Moving firmware blobs out of the kernel., David Woodhouse, (Thu May 29, 5:18 pm)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] Fixing the Kernel Janitors project, Matthew Wilcox, (Wed May 28, 10:27 pm)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] Fixing the Kernel Janitors project, James Bottomley, (Thu May 29, 10:36 am)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] Fixing the Kernel Janitors project, Rafael J. Wysocki, (Thu May 29, 4:24 pm)
Re: [Ksummit-2008-discuss] Fixing the Kernel Janitors project, Rafael J. Wysocki, (Mon Jun 2, 6:43 am)
How many contributors are we losing, Luck, Tony, (Fri May 30, 4:23 pm)
Re: How many contributors are we losing, Josh Boyer, (Fri May 30, 9:12 pm)
Re: How many contributors are we losing, Greg KH, (Fri May 30, 4:47 pm)
Re: How many contributors are we losing, Stefan Richter, (Sat May 31, 3:53 pm)
Re: How many contributors are we losing, Willy Tarreau, (Fri May 30, 4:46 pm)