From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S937122AbYEUTqY (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 May 2008 15:46:24 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S937069AbYEUTpv (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 May 2008 15:45:51 -0400 Received: from www.church-of-our-saviour.ORG ([69.25.196.31]:57509 "EHLO thunker.thunk.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S937067AbYEUTpt (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 May 2008 15:45:49 -0400 Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 15:45:36 -0400 From: Theodore Tso To: Andrew Morton Cc: Al Viro , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, davem@davemloft.net Subject: Re: CFD: linux-wanking@vger.kernel.org (was [PATCH] Standard indentation of arguments) Message-ID: <20080521194536.GM8581@mit.edu> Mail-Followup-To: Theodore Tso , Andrew Morton , Al Viro , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, davem@davemloft.net References: <12113495282137-git-send-email-kongjianjun@gmail.com> <20080521083413.GM28946@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> <20080521015037.add0b78e.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20080521094153.GN28946@ZenIV.linux.org.uk> <20080521104418.736e3379.akpm@linux-foundation.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20080521104418.736e3379.akpm@linux-foundation.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.15+20070412 (2007-04-11) X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: tytso@mit.edu X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on thunker.thunk.org); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 10:44:18AM -0700, Andrew Morton wrote: > I have spoken with engineers both individual and within companies who > have developed and who plan to develop substantial kernel features. > I'm forever explaining to people why they should work to get that code > merged up. One reason for their not yet having done so which comes up > again and again is apprehension at the reception they will receive. In > public. This problem appears to be especially strong in Asian > countries. You have just made the situation worse. It probably did make things marginally worse from that standpoint, but the code style weanies also make things worse, so at least IMHO it's a wash. I'd suggest that the more aggressive public code reviews and the perception that it is highly painful, time-consuming, and expensive to get code merged up. But of course we need that to maintain quality. Even if we eliminated all code style weanies slapdowns, if a Asian Engineer submits a patchset, and it gets (rightly) ripped to pieces by Cristoph for all sorts of code quality problems, and by Al Viro because it intrdoces tons and tons of deadlocks, we'll still have the potential problem that the Asian engineer feels that he has shamed his company and has to resign or will get fired by his management. The only way to solve that problem is either to change the perception of Asian engineers and at their companies (and there has been some success along that line that what is being attacked is the code, not the submitter), and we could meet them halfway by offering to do an initial code reivew privately so they don't have to feel that they are getting publically humiliated. (And there is a little of that going on, informally, as well.) So yes, it's a problem, and I'd agree if this was an gratuitously mean code review. i.e., the difference between, "isn't this a locking hierarchy violation?" vs "Congratulations! You've just completely screwed up VM locking hierarchy, you idiot!". People have been a bit frustrated by the stupid patches and people who waste time with whitespace patches or running checkpatch.pl on random files, so it's a bit understandable that they might slap down those folks --- and I would hope that one of these Asian engineers would be able to see the difference between a desperately needed slapdown and the reception they might get when they submit a patch to be merged up. (But if they are getting their patches ripped apart during the code review, and that's causing them to lose face inside their company, that's a different problem.) - Ted