Re: [alsa-devel] [PATCH] ASoC: core: Fix access to uninitialized list heads

[Takashi Iwai <tiwai@suse.de>]

On Fri, 27 Dec 2019 23:41:33 +0100,
Mark Brown wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 08:28:05AM +0100, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> > Mark Brown wrote:
> 
> > > Please don't send content free pings and please allow a reasonable time
> > > for review.  People get busy, go on holiday, attend conferences and so 
> > > on so unless there is some reason for urgency (like critical bug fixes)
> > > please allow at least a couple of weeks for review.  If there have been
> > > review comments then people may be waiting for those to be addressed.
> 
> > > Sending content free pings adds to the mail volume (if they are seen at
> > > all) which is often the problem and since they can't be reviewed
> > > directly if something has gone wrong you'll have to resend the patches
> > > anyway, so sending again is generally a better approach though there are
> > > some other maintainers who like them - if in doubt look at how patches
> > > for the subsystem are normally handled.
> 
> > This warning doesn't seem fit at all.  The patch was submitted three
> > weeks ago.
> 
> There's two bits there - one is that it's adding to the mail
> volume when people chase up, the other is that if things have
> been lost then almost always the answer is that I don't have the
> patch any more (or it'll be error prone to find) and it'll need a
> resend so it's better to chase up by resending the patch since
> that can be acted on directly.

Well, I see a few points to be revised in this policy:

- If it were actually your oversight, then resending the patch makes
  sense.  But if it's not merged by other reasons?  Silently resending
  a patch can be worse.

  For example, suppose the submitter either overlooked or didn't
  receive a reply or a followup in the thread.  You didn't apply the
  patch because of the reply/followup pointing some problem.  Now, the
  submitter tries to resend the original patch again without asking
  the situation, just because you suggested so in the past.  You'll
  get the problematic patch again, and there is a risk that the patch
  gets merged mistakenly at this time.

- The mail archive (lore.kernel.org) nowadays catches all posted mails
  in a proper manner, and it's pretty easy to fetch.  And, resending
  the whole patch would be even higher volume than replying,
  disconnecting the discussions in the previous thread.

So, I find it's OK to give this kind of warning for educational
purposes to the people who don't know the common practice and send the
patches too frequently.  But for other cases, such a warning doesn't
fit.


thanks,

Takashi
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