Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] [4/4] Discuss how to better prevent backports of commits that turn out to cause regressions

Geert Uytterhoeven
2024-06-16T09:05:27Z

Hi Linus,

On Sun, Jun 16, 2024 at 7:00 AM Linus Torvalds
<torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
> So a pure source link I still find to be of *very* questionable value,
> compared to things that have actual obvious real value:
>
> - bug reports
>
> - background discussion
>
> - pointers to earlier versions that didn't get committed
>
> so yes, I find it almost offensive when I have to debug a problem, and
> I find a Link: that I hope explains things, and all it just shows is
> the SAME DAMN INFORMATION that was in the commit already, and that I
> could trivially have found by just searching lore for the author and
> date.
>
> At that point, "Link:" is just wasting my time.

Searching lore for the author and date manually would have wasted more
time ;-)

The nice thing about the Link to the original patch is that it also
serves as a link to information that did not exist yet at the time the
patch was committed. I regularly run into an issue, bisect the problem,
follow the link, to find a similar bug report and sometimes even a fix.

I agree the perfect patch series would have in the cover letter:
1. A link to a discussion that started the development op the series,
and/or earlier tries to solve the itch,
2. A link to the previously submitted version.
All of these can be found by recursively following the Link in the
commit.

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

Geert

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds