Re: [PATCH 1/3] bnx2i remove not so useful global variable bnx2i_reg_devices

James Bottomley
2009-06-28T20:11:10Z

On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 12:59 -0700, Michael Chan wrote:
> On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 10:25 -0700, James Bottomley wrote:
> > On Sun, 2009-06-28 at 08:46 -0700, Michael Chan wrote:
> > > James Bottomley wrote:
> > >
> > > > On Tue, 2009-06-23 at 18:11 -0700, Anil Veerabhadrappa wrote:
> > > > > >From a8267738e9ca5c73ad6c0d89f17cf864bfc908c8 Mon Sep 17
> > > > 00:00:00 2001
> > > > > From: Anil Veerabhadrappa <anilgv@broadcom.com>
> > > > > Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:56:29 -0700
> > > > > Subject: [PATCH] bnx2i - remove global variable
> > > > bnx2i_reg_devices
> > > > >
> > > > > * Removed bnx2i_reg_devices as this counter is not really
> > > > > used in a meaningful way
> > > > > Cc: Mike Christie <michaelc@cs.wisc.edu>
> > > > >
> > > > > Signed-off-by: Michael Chan <mchan@broadcom.com>
> > > > > Signed-off-by: Anil Veerabhadrappa <anilgv@broadcom.com>
> > > >
> > > > Tell me what these signoffs mean: The first signoff by Michael Chan
> > > > implies it's his patch, but it has your authorship information.
> > > >
> > >
> > > Sorry, Anil should have put his signoff first. Do we need to re-spin
> > > the pacthes?
> >
> > So did you actually contribute to these? In which case a note saying
> > something like
> >
> > [mchan: did X to the driver]
>
> Here's one example of what I did:
>
> [mchan: bnx2i_init_one() - don't add hba to adater_list if
> ->register_device fails ]
>
> In general, all our patchsets go through some internal review and
> testing by others besides the author. We use multiple signoffs to
> include everyone who has made some contributions to the patchset. We'll
> try to be more specific about who did what in the future.

That's fine ... and including what they actually did with square
brackets is a good way of reminding me that the usage is correct.

Many people use signed-off-by to award recognition, but that's not what
they're for: they're there because of SCO and the need to track patches
back to sources according to the Developer Certificate of Origin. Under
the DCO a signed-off-by means the person in the signoff modified the
patch in some way (or retransmitted it).

James