[RFC patch] MAINTAINERS: encourage testers to volunteer

[RFC patch] MAINTAINERS: encourage testers to volunteer

[Jim Cromie]

Add a new entry-type into MAINTAINERS whereby folks with hardware can 
volunteer to
test patches to the driver.  It should encourage folks to put themselves 
"on the hook"
in trade for a little bit of notoriety.

Hopefully this will help improve:
- support for rare hardware
- QA on that hardware
- connections between hackers & testers
- would-be hackers can find new things to do, esp in less visited parts 
of the dist.

Additions should be approved by maintainers etc, but thats no different 
than is currently done.


--- doc-touches/MAINTAINERS~	2006-09-14 11:50:03.000000000 -0600
+++ doc-touches/MAINTAINERS	2006-09-14 12:19:13.000000000 -0600
@@ -80,6 +80,12 @@
 			it has been replaced by a better system and you
 			should be using that.
 
+V: Validation/Test contact and hardware they can test.
+
+	Identifies folks who are willing to test driver patches, etc.
+	Also can identify lack of hardware for otherwize maintained drivers
+	by using 'none'
+
 3C359 NETWORK DRIVER
 P:	Mike Phillips
 M:	mikep@linuxtr.net

Re: [RFC patch] MAINTAINERS: encourage testers to volunteer

[Adrian Bunk]

On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 01:14:24PM -0600, Jim Cromie wrote:
> 
> Add a new entry-type into MAINTAINERS whereby folks with hardware can 
> volunteer to
> test patches to the driver.  It should encourage folks to put themselves 
> "on the hook"
> in trade for a little bit of notoriety.
> 
> Hopefully this will help improve:
> - support for rare hardware
> - QA on that hardware
> - connections between hackers & testers
> - would-be hackers can find new things to do, esp in less visited parts 
> of the dist.
> 
> Additions should be approved by maintainers etc, but thats no different 
> than is currently done.

There are currently 97 different saa7134 card types supported by the 
kernel. Do we need an entry for each of them (each card type has it's 
own specific support)?

And this information will become outdated much faster than updated
(even the maintainers entries are sometimes outdated).

> --- doc-touches/MAINTAINERS~	2006-09-14 11:50:03.000000000 -0600
> +++ doc-touches/MAINTAINERS	2006-09-14 12:19:13.000000000 -0600
> @@ -80,6 +80,12 @@
> 			it has been replaced by a better system and you
> 			should be using that.
> 
> +V: Validation/Test contact and hardware they can test.
> +
> +	Identifies folks who are willing to test driver patches, etc.
> +	Also can identify lack of hardware for otherwize maintained drivers
> +	by using 'none'
> +
> 3C359 NETWORK DRIVER
> P:	Mike Phillips
> M:	mikep@linuxtr.net

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: [RFC patch] MAINTAINERS: encourage testers to volunteer

[Jiri Slaby]

Adrian Bunk wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 14, 2006 at 01:14:24PM -0600, Jim Cromie wrote:
>> Add a new entry-type into MAINTAINERS whereby folks with hardware can 
>> volunteer to
>> test patches to the driver.  It should encourage folks to put themselves 
>> "on the hook"
>> in trade for a little bit of notoriety.
>>
>> Hopefully this will help improve:
>> - support for rare hardware
>> - QA on that hardware
>> - connections between hackers & testers
>> - would-be hackers can find new things to do, esp in less visited parts 
>> of the dist.
>>
>> Additions should be approved by maintainers etc, but thats no different 
>> than is currently done.
> 
> There are currently 97 different saa7134 card types supported by the 
> kernel. Do we need an entry for each of them (each card type has it's 
> own specific support)?

It's utterly sufficient to know about only one person, who have that piece of 
hardware in most cases -- to test the core of the driver, not all specific 
parts. Something like to test it at least roughly.

> And this information will become outdated much faster than updated
> (even the maintainers entries are sometimes outdated).

When akpm proposed this, I agreed (but still have no contacts to post a patch), 
because I needed somebody to test a driver I had rewritten a little bit, but 
there was no place to take a look...
But his thoughts were a little bit different, he considered creating a separate 
file named TESTERS and there have a list of these "qa people" (even for one 
specific piece of hw if necessary). [I hope I did understand him correctly...]

>> --- doc-touches/MAINTAINERS~	2006-09-14 11:50:03.000000000 -0600
>> +++ doc-touches/MAINTAINERS	2006-09-14 12:19:13.000000000 -0600
>> @@ -80,6 +80,12 @@
>> 			it has been replaced by a better system and you
>> 			should be using that.
>>
>> +V: Validation/Test contact and hardware they can test.
>> +
>> +	Identifies folks who are willing to test driver patches, etc.
>> +	Also can identify lack of hardware for otherwize maintained drivers
>> +	by using 'none'
>> +
>> 3C359 NETWORK DRIVER
>> P:	Mike Phillips
>> M:	mikep@linuxtr.net

regards,
-- 
http://www.fi.muni.cz/~xslaby/            Jiri Slaby
faculty of informatics, masaryk university, brno, cz
e-mail: jirislaby gmail com, gpg pubkey fingerprint:
B674 9967 0407 CE62 ACC8  22A0 32CC 55C3 39D4 7A7E

Re: [RFC patch] MAINTAINERS: encourage testers to volunteer

[Jan Engelhardt]

>
> +V: Validation/Test contact and hardware they can test.
> +
> +	Identifies folks who are willing to test driver patches, etc.
> +	Also can identify lack of hardware for otherwize maintained drivers
                                                      ^

s

> +	by using 'none'
> +
> 3C359 NETWORK DRIVER
> P:	Mike Phillips
> M:	mikep@linuxtr.net
>
>

Jan Engelhardt
--