Re: [poky] [PATCH RFC] add basic support for b4 contribution workflow

[Richard Purdie <richard.purdie@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Fri, 2025-01-24 at 19:06 +0100, Quentin Schulz wrote:
> Hi Richard,
> 
> On 1/24/25 6:48 PM, Richard Purdie wrote:
> > On Thu, 2025-01-23 at 16:44 +0100, Quentin Schulz via lists.yoctoproject.org wrote:
> > > From: Quentin Schulz <quentin.schulz@cherry.de>
> > > 
> > > b4[1] is a very nice tool for mail-based contribution. A config[2] file
> > > exists to set up a few defaults. We can use it to set the Cc recipients
> > > to always add, in our case the mailing list.
> > > 
> > > This also adds a wrapper script that is called by b4 to check that each
> > > patch in the series is only for one project. Indeed, poky is actually
> > > a "collection" of multiple repositories, namely BitBake,
> > > OpenEmbedded-Core and the Yocto Docs. One patch should therefore not
> > > make changes in multiple of those projects otherwise it cannot be
> > > merged.
> > > Additionally, a check is added to make sure that a series only touches
> > > files from one project to avoid having to figure out which patch is to
> > > be merged by which maintainer in which project repo.
> > > 
> > > Moreover, it is not uncommon to have people develop patches for those
> > > projects from within poky. This wrapper figures out which mailing lists
> > > to send patches to based on the files that are modified in the series.
> > > Considering that patches to the bitbake/doc/ directory need to be sent
> > > to both the bitbake and yocto-docs mailing list, this wrapper handles
> > > that. A limitation of the script (lsdiff actually) is that it doesn't
> > > know how to handle empty files, but those should be of rather rare
> > > occurrences.
> > > 
> > > Note that this script requires hardcoding of paths that are handled by
> > > different projects to map files to projects. Anything not mapped is
> > > assumed part of OE-Core.
> > > 
> > > [1] https://pypi.org/project/b4/
> > > [2] https://b4.docs.kernel.org/en/latest/config.html
> > > 
> > > Signed-off-by: Quentin Schulz <quentin.schulz@cherry.de>
> > > ---
> [...]
> > I'm not against this but I would like to:
> > 
> > a) Put the script into OE-Core, just so that we don't have "magic"
> > things in poky.
> 
> It is very poky-specific though. I don't have anything in mind right now 
> but I could imagine we could need a b4 wrapper for openembedded-core at 
> some point as well. b4-wrapper-oe-core.py and b4-wrapper-poky.py could 
> coexistthough and be pointed at specifically by each repo's .b4-config.
> 
> Don't mind it, just find it a bit odd.

It is a little unusual but I'd rather this than adding poky specific
content. I'm find with either a poky specific script or a parameter to
put it into "poky" mode.

> I haven't checked if b4 follows symlink, but if it can, would you want 
> .b4-config.poky in OE-Core too and then we do the same dance as with the 
> README.md in OE-Core/poky?

I think that would be confusing, I'm find with two different files and
combo-layer can handle that easily.

> > b) Perhaps name it something a little more poky specific
> 
> b4-wrapper-poky.py? b4-wrapper-poky.py to match README.poky.md for 
> example? My brain has already decided it's the weekend so not very 
> creative right now :)

Something like that. I'm also not feeling very creative atm!

Cheers,

Richard