From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S965562AbXIGQSO (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Sep 2007 12:18:14 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1757469AbXIGQR7 (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Sep 2007 12:17:59 -0400 Received: from THUNK.ORG ([69.25.196.29]:45903 "EHLO thunker.thunk.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757437AbXIGQR6 (ORCPT ); Fri, 7 Sep 2007 12:17:58 -0400 Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 12:04:45 -0400 From: Theodore Tso To: Randy Dunlap Cc: Andrew Morton , mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [patch 1/6] Linux Kernel Markers - Architecture Independent Code Message-ID: <20070907160445.GB8911@thunk.org> Mail-Followup-To: Theodore Tso , Randy Dunlap , Andrew Morton , mathieu.desnoyers@polymtl.ca, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <20070906200733.194442762@polymtl.ca> <20070906200825.893834634@polymtl.ca> <20070906160001.cfe48d78.randy.dunlap@oracle.com> <20070906160429.629c9497.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20070906163737.9cc91307.randy.dunlap@oracle.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20070906163737.9cc91307.randy.dunlap@oracle.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: tytso@thunk.org X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on thunker.thunk.org); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, Sep 06, 2007 at 04:37:37PM -0700, Randy Dunlap wrote: > Thanks. I look forward to the explanation of Reviewed-by, what it > means, and how it differs from Acked-by. This was proposed by Andrew and discussed at the Kernel Summit; the basic idea is that it is a formal indication that the person has done a *full* review of the patch (a few random comments from the local whitespace police don't count), and is willing to vouch that the patch is correct, safe, extremely unlikely to cause regressions, etc. If the patch does need to be reverted or fixed because it was buggy, then both the original submitter and the reviewer would bear responsibility and subsystem maintainers might take that into account when assessing the reputations of the submitter and reviewer in the future when deciding whether or not to accept a patch. Basically, some people seem to be using "Acked-by" to mean, "seems good to me", without necessarily doing a full review of the patch, and instead of trying to change the meaning of "Acked-by", to have a new sign off which is a bit more explicitly about what it means. (Hmmm, thinking about it afterwards, maybe "Vouched-by:" would be even better....) There was some thought about negative attention (i.e., "public mockery") given to people who sign off on a patch via Reviewed-by: that subsequently turns out to be buggy or cause a regression, but the concern with that is that we have enough trouble finding people to review patches, and we wouldn't want to scare off reviewers. But it would be fair to say that the consequences of reviewing patches successfully or unsuccessfully would naturally impact people's reputations. There was also some discussion about whether or not patches would not be accepted at all without a Reviewed-by, but that probably won't happen initially. The general consensus was to gently ease into it and see how well it works first. - Ted