Re: [PATCH v1 1/1] docs: process: submitting-patches: Clarify the Reported-by usage

Andy Shevchenko
2022-01-31T15:35:44Z

On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 04:18:30PM +0100, Johan Hovold wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 01:44:20PM +0000, Matthew Wilcox wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 27, 2022 at 09:08:06AM -0700, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> > > Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com> writes:
> > >
> > > > It's unclear from "Submitting Patches" documentation that Reported-by
> > > > is not supposed to be used against new features. (It's more clear
> > > > in the section 5.4 "Patch formatting and changelogs" of the "A guide
> > > > to the Kernel Development Process", where it suggests that change
> > > > should fix something existing in the kernel. Clarify the Reported-by
> > > > usage in the "Submitting Patches".
>
> > > How about instead something like "Reported-by is intended for bugs;
> > > please do not use it to credit feature requests"?
> >
> > I think this misunderstands the problem that Andy is trying to fix.
> >
> > The situation: I write a patch. I post it for review. A bot does
> > something and finds a bug (could be compile-error, could be boot
> > problem). That bot sends a bug report with a suggestion to add
> > Reported-by:. That suggestion is inappropriate because the bug never
> > made it upstream, so it looks like the bot reported the "problem"
> > that the patch "fixes".
> >
> > It's not unique to "new feature" patches. If I'm fixing a bug and
> > my fix also contains a bug spotted by a bot, adding Reported-by
> > makes it look like the bot spotted the original bug, rather than
> > spotting a bug in the fix.
> >
> > The best thing to do in this case is nothing. Do not credit the bot.
> > Maybe add a Checked-by:, but that would be a new trailer and I really
> > don't think we need a new kind of trailer to get wrong.
>
> It seems like the only way to fix this is to fix the bots. Adding more
> documentation is unlikely to help in this case.

Links to the documentation at least may clarify the point in case of a review.

> Can't we file a bug to whoever is running the bots (Intel?) and ask them
> to remove the suggestion to add a Reported-by when the bot is testing a
> patch (as opposed to mainline or even -next)?

The granularity here is not a repo. It's a code itself and in some cases
it might be easy to distinguish new feature from the code modifications,
but when code is already there and feature is just an extension of the
existing file(s), it's hard to tell. And it might be true or not.

--
With Best Regards,
Andy Shevchenko