Re: [PATCH net-next v2 00/15] ARM: sun8i: r40: Add Ethernet support

[David Miller <davem@davemloft.net>]

From: Maxime Ripard <maxime.ripard@bootlin.com>
Date: Thu, 3 May 2018 15:12:57 +0200

> Hi Dave,
> 
> On Wed, May 02, 2018 at 11:06:17AM -0400, David Miller wrote:
>> From: Chen-Yu Tsai <wens@csie.org>
>> Date: Wed, 2 May 2018 00:33:45 +0800
>> 
>> > I should've mentioned that patches 3 ~ 10, and only these, should go
>> > through net-next. sunxi will handle the remaining clk, device tree, and
>> > soc driver patches.
>> 
>> Ok, I just noticed this.
>> 
>> Why don't you just post those patches separately as a series on their
>> own then, in order to avoid confusion?
>> 
>> Then you can adjust the patch series header posting to explain the
>> non-net-next changes, where they got merged, and what they provide
>> in order to faciliate the net-next changes.
> 
> I now that we usually have some feedback from non-net maintainers that
> they actually prefer seeing the full picture (and I also tend to
> prefer that as well) and having all the patches relevant to enable a
> particular feature, even if it means getting multiple maintainers
> involved.
> 
> Just to make sure we understood you fully, do you want Chen-Yu to
> resend his serie following your comments, or was that just a general
> remark for next time?

Yeah, good questions.

I think it can be argued either way.  For review having the complete
context is important.

But from a maintainer's standpoint, when there is any ambiguity
whatsoever about what patches go into this tree or that, it is really
frowned upon and is quite error prone.

Also, that header posting is _SO_ important.  It explains the series.
But for these 'partial apply' situations the header posting refers
to patches not in the series.

This looks terrible in the logs, when, as I do, the header posting
text is added to a marge commit for the series.  People will read it
and say "where are all of these other changes mentioned in the text?
was this series misapplied?"

That's why, maybe after the review is successful, I want the actual
patch series standalone with appropriately updated header posting
text.