Re: [PATCH v2 0/7] hwrng: Add support for STMicroelectronics' RNG IP

[Lee Jones <lee.jones@linaro.org>]

On Wed, 30 Sep 2015, Herbert Xu wrote:
> On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 03:15:39PM +0100, Lee Jones wrote:
> >
> > > I prefer not to merge patches that cannot be tested.  Without
> > > the DT bits in patch 6 the other five patches are useless.  So
> > > I think patch 6 should be applied together with the other five
> > > which add the driver.
> > 
> > That's crazy talk.  If all subsystem maintainers abide by this rule
> > there would be chaos.  We'd either need to send pull-requests to each
> > other for every set which crossed a subsystems boundary, or 1000's of
> > merge conflicts would ensue at merge time.
> > 
> > The (sensible) rule we normally stick to is; as long as there isn't
> > a _build_ dependency, then the patches should filter though their
> > respective trees; _functional_ dependencies have nothing to do with
> > us as maintainers.  Another chaos preventing rule we abide by is; thou
> > shalt not apply patches belonging to other maintainer's subsystems
> > without the appropriate Ack-by and a subsequent "you may take this
> > though your tree" and/or "please send me an immutable pull-request".
> 
> So you want the series to be merged in two parts via two different
> trees where neither can be tested? That sounds crazy to me.

Who is going to checkout the HWRNG tree and run-test it on it's own on
all of the required hardware?  No one.  Agreed, subsystem trees should
be bisectably (new word? :D) buildable as per my first rule above, but
that's it.  Per-subsystem repos are not designed to be tested for
full-functionality orthogonally, that's the point of Stephen's -next
tree.

Please take my other points into consideration too.  The kernel would
be unmainatinable if we all stuck to your rule.  No-one else has that
rule, and for good reason.

-- 
Lee Jones
Linaro STMicroelectronics Landing Team Lead
Linaro.org │ Open source software for ARM SoCs
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