Re: [PATCH 0/82] changing CONFIG_LOCALVERSION rebuilds too much, for no good reason.

[Nish Aravamudan <nish.aravamudan@gmail.com>]

On 7/10/05, David S. Miller <davem@davemloft.net> wrote:
> From: Nish Aravamudan <nish.aravamudan@gmail.com>
> Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 21:18:15 -0700
> 
> > A quick question here regarding the possibility of one logical change
> > for all of drivers/. Does that hold true for *any* logical change?
> >
> > Intuitively, I would say no. My biggest concern with that is there are
> > many Maintainers listed for particular SCSI drivers, e.g., as well as
> > one for the SCSI subsystem. If those individual driver maintainers'
> > files are being modified, should they be CC'ed, or is the big patch
> > just sent to the SCSI maintainer (in this example)? I just want to
> > make sure the correct patch-chain is respected.
> 
> Please just use common sense.  It depends upon how intrusive the
> change is.  In most cases, the driver author's have to learn to
> "let go" and let these general cleanups happen.  The onus is on
> them to follow upstream when the submit new changes of their own.
> 
> Some examples:
> 
> 1) Deleting superfluous header file.
> 
>    Just do a clean sweep.
> 
> 2) Adding a new argument to an existing interface.
> 
>    Just do a clean sweep.
> 
> 3) Transitioning drivers over to a new exception handling mechanism.
> 
>    Probably want to do submit a patch for driver at a time.  You
>    should be doing more a few of these driver conversions at a time
>    anyways, so no risk of patch bombing.
> 
> 4) Straight forward transformations, for example hiding data
>    structure member access behind a function or macro.
> 
>    Just do a clean sweep in large chunks.
> 
> Again, use common sense.  If you're just crossing your "T"'s and
> dotting your "i"'s, don't spam everyone with a thousand patches
> for such a cleanup.

Great! Thanks for the quick feedback. I'll make sure this gets added
to the KJ FAQ (mayhap even verbatim :) )

Thanks,
Nish