Re: [PATCH] MAINTAINERS: name the ext4 dev branch

["Theodore Tso" <tytso@mit.edu>]

On Wed, Sep 23, 2026 at 06:17:49PM -0500, Matthias Goergens wrote:
> The ext4 T: entry names the repository without a branch, so tools that
> default to the repository's HEAD select master, which still points at a
> merge from October 2020 (96485e446260).  Development happens on dev,
> which is also the branch linux-next merges.  Name it.

Huh.  I wasn't even aware that you *could* specify the branch name in
the T: entry.  A quick "grep ^T: MAINTAINERS" there are only a few
repos using T: that include branch.

I also tried looking at the documentation, and I can't find any
mention that the git branch could be specified.  Maybe we should
update the documentation for T: in a separate patch to the MAINTAINERS
file?  Or did I miss something?  "git grep MAINTAINERS | grep branch"
didn't turn up anything.

> The Sashiko review bot, for one, falls back to HEAD this way and has
> been reviewing ext4 patches against that tree.  Its review of an EA
> inode refcount fix reported a Critical double decrement and an
> undefined function after applying the patch to that stale baseline;
> neither holds on dev.

... and I didn't know that Sashiko uses the branch specifier.  I
wonder if ext4 is the only tree which might have this issue...

   git log --merges linux-next

... nope, apparently not.  I see a lot of branches which are merged
into linux-net which are not mentioned in the MAINTAINERS file.

Thanks for pointing this out for the ext4 MAINTAINERS entry!

						- Ted