Re: RFC: reviewer's statement of oversight

Neil Brown
2007-10-09T00:05:54Z

On Monday October 8, corbet@lwn.net wrote:

I find it is always good to know *why* we have the tags. That
information is a useful complement to what they mean, and can guide
people in adding them.

So below I present some "Purposes", YetAnotherTag, and a comment on
the RSO.

(And I'd like to add a vote for "Blame-Shared-By:" rather than
"Reviewed-by:", however I don't I'll get much support...)

> diff --git a/Documentation/patch-tags b/Documentation/patch-tags
> new file mode 100644
> index 0000000..fb5f8e1
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/Documentation/patch-tags
> @@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
> +Patches headed for the mainline may contain a variety of tags documenting
> +who played a hand in (or was at least aware of) its progress. All of these
> +tags have the form:
> +
> + Something-done-by: Full name <email@address>
> +
> +These tags are:

From: The Author, Primary Author, or Authors of the patch.
Authors should also provide a Signed-off-by: tag.

Purpose: to give credit to authors
> +
> +Signed-off-by: A person adding a Signed-off-by tag is attesting that the
> + patch is, to the best of his or her knowledge, legally able
> + to be merged into the mainline and distributed under the
> + terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2. See
> + the Developer's Certificate of Origin, found in
> + Documentation/SubmittingPatches, for the precise meaning of
> + Signed-off-by.

Purpose: to allow subsequent review of the originality of
the contribution should copyright questions arise.
> +
> +Acked-by: The person named (who should be an active developer in the
> + area addressed by the patch) is aware of the patch and has
> + no objection to its inclusion. An Acked-by tag does not
> + imply any involvement in the development of the patch or
> + that a detailed review was done.

Purpose: to inform upstream aggregators that
consensus was achieved for the change. This is
particularly relevant for changes that affect multiple
Maintenance Domains.

> +
> +Reviewed-by: The patch has been reviewed and found acceptible according
> + to the Reviewer's Statement as found at the bottom of this
> + file. A Reviewed-by tag is a statement of opinion that the
> + patch is an appropriate modification of the kernel without
> + any remaining serious technical issues. Any interested
> + reviewer (who has done the work) can offer a Reviewed-by
> + tag for a patch.

Purpose: to inform upstream aggregators that due
diligence has been performed to ensure correctness of
the change. Also to give credit to reviewers.

> +
> +Cc: The person named was given the opportunity to comment on
> + the patch. This is the only tag which might be added
> + without an explicit action by the person it names.

Purpose: to ensure that interested parties are
included in subsequent discussions of the change.

> +
> +Tested-by: The patch has been successfully tested (in some
> + environment) by the person named.

Purpose: to give credit to testers.

> +
> +
> +----
> +
> +Reviewer's statement of oversight, v0.02
> +
> +By offering my Reviewed-by: tag, I state that:
> +
> + (a) I have carried out a technical review of this patch to evaluate its
> + appropriateness and readiness for inclusion into the mainline kernel.
> +
> + (b) Any problems, concerns, or questions relating to the patch have been
> + communicated back to the submitter. I am satisfied with how the
> + submitter has responded to my comments.

This seems more detailed that necessary. The process (communicated
back / responded) is not really relevant. I would go for something
like:

(b) I have no outstanding problems, concerns, or questions about
this patch (except as noted in the above comments).

and in fact, given (c2), (b) might not be needed at all.

NeilBrown

> +
> + (c) While there may (or may not) be things which could be improved with
> + this submission, I believe that it is, at this time, (1) a worthwhile
> + modification to the kernel, and (2) free of known issues which would
> + argue against its inclusion.
> +
> + (d) While I have reviewed the patch and believe it to be sound, I can not
> + (unless explicitly stated elsewhere) make any warranties or guarantees
> + that it will achieve its stated purpose or function properly in any
> + given situation.
> +
> + (e) I understand and agree that this project and the contribution are
> + public and that a record of the contribution (including my Reviewed-by
> + tag and any associated public communications) is maintained
> + indefinitely and may be redistributed consistent with this project or
> + the open source license(s) involved.
> -
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