Re: [PATCH] docs: submitting-patches: Require base tree information

[Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzk@kernel.org>]

On 21/10/2026 08:39, Eric Biggers wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 21, 2026 at 08:26:28AM +0200, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
>> On 20/10/2026 23:22, Eric Biggers wrote:
>>> -Make sure that base commit is in an official maintainer/mainline tree
>>> -and not in some internal, accessible only to you tree - otherwise it
>>> -would be worthless.
>>> +    If ``git format-patch`` with ``--base=auto`` (or
>>> +    ``format.useAutoBase=true``) can't detect a base commit, e.g. due to
>>> +    the current branch having no upstream tracking branch, it exits with
>>> +    an error. In such cases, pass an explicit base commit to ``--base``
>>> +    instead. This is also needed if git detects the wrong base commit,
>>> +    such as when the upstream branch has local, unpublished commits.
>>> +
>>> +The base commit must be in a well-known public tree, such as the
>>> +subsystem development branch the patch is targeting. See
>>> +:ref:`obtain_a_current_source_tree`. Mainline or the latest linux-next
>>> +can also be acceptable bases, depending on the subsystem.
>>
>> I disagree, that's pointlessly too hard requirement.
>>
>> For many of my contributions base is obvious and not needed to be
>> explicitly defined. For all the patches I accept, answer is the same -
>> base is either obvious or if not and patch does not apply, then the base
>> does not matter.
>>
>> Requiring it is just bureaucracy without actual benefit.
>>
>> The only benefit would be if maintainer COULD change its base to apply
>> some patch with odd base... but this cannot happen. Maintainer base is
>> fixed - it's the HEAD of his development branch for given category of
>> commits (e.g. DTS branch for SoC maintainers).
> 
> There are many use cases for applying patches besides the final patch
> acceptance, such as review (by anyone, not just a maintainer), testing,
> CI systems, etc.
> 
> HEAD of a branch is of course not fixed, and changes every time a patch
> gets applied.  That's especially relevant when wanting to check out an
> old patch for any reason.  Trying to guess a base commit based on the
> date and patch subject is a waste of time.

All these tools should just work on top of linux-next. Requiring people
to add base like "next-20261021" or "tip-of-obvious-maintainer-tree" is
pointless. I understand that base is helping, but helping and requiring
an obvious information just do not go together.

So again: base has ZERO meaning to the maintainer process. It has
meaning to tools, so fix the tools to work on known and obvious trees.

Best regards,
Krzysztof