Figuring out the right patch receivers

Figuring out the right patch receivers

[Sinclair Yeh]

Hi,

For the first time, I sent out a patch series that touched multiple
subsystems.

I used "get_maintainer.pl" to figure out who all the maintainers are
and decided to send the entire series to x86 at kernel.org" and Cc
"linux-kernel at vger.kernel.org"

I also Cc'ed individual patches to (what I thought were) the
appropriate maintainers.

One of the maintainers, GregKH, said I probably should have CC'ed him
on the entire series, but get_maintainer.pl listed him as a
"supporter" for only a subset of the patches.

Can someone tell me where I went wrong in my thought process so
I can get it right the next time?

thanks,

Sinclair

PS. Mentioning GregKH rather than "a maintainer" only because I know he
maintains kernel-stable so maybe he's got a more expanded role.  Since
the series was not for kernel-stable, I thought following get_maintainer.pl
is the right approach.

Figuring out the right patch receivers

[Greg KH]

On Wed, Dec 02, 2015 at 09:27:10AM -0800, Sinclair Yeh wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> For the first time, I sent out a patch series that touched multiple
> subsystems.
> 
> I used "get_maintainer.pl" to figure out who all the maintainers are
> and decided to send the entire series to x86 at kernel.org" and Cc
> "linux-kernel at vger.kernel.org"
> 
> I also Cc'ed individual patches to (what I thought were) the
> appropriate maintainers.
> 
> One of the maintainers, GregKH, said I probably should have CC'ed him
> on the entire series, but get_maintainer.pl listed him as a
> "supporter" for only a subset of the patches.
> 
> Can someone tell me where I went wrong in my thought process so
> I can get it right the next time?
> 
> thanks,
> 
> Sinclair
> 
> PS. Mentioning GregKH rather than "a maintainer" only because I know he
> maintains kernel-stable so maybe he's got a more expanded role.  Since
> the series was not for kernel-stable, I thought following get_maintainer.pl
> is the right approach.

But, I'm the maintainer for the drivers/misc/ subsystem, which this
patch series did touch, so you should have cc:ed me on it, or at the
very least, the vmbus developers should have told you that as they
forward patches on to me.

For multi-subsystem patchsets like this, it's important to cc: everyone
relevant on the 00/XX email so we all know what is going on, not to just
copy them on a single email in a series, otherwise we will be confused
and not know what to do with only patch 03/06 or so, especially when
patach 03 depends on earlier patches.

And really, your patcheset hit all of one specific type of driver, so
the maintainers of that subsystem should take care of this all for you,
you shouldn't be responsible for sending it to all different places.

hope this helps,

greg k-h