Re: [Qemu-devel] We need more reviewers/maintainers!!

[Avi Kivity <avi@redhat.com>]

On 03/12/2012 08:18 PM, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
> > 
> > * Reviewed-by: Full Name <email>
> > 
> >   A Reviewed-by tag is a statement of opinion that the patch is an appropriate
> >   modification without any remaining serious technical issues. Any interested
> >   reviewer (who has done the work) can offer a Reviewed-by tag for a patch.
> > 
> > 
> > My understanding until now was that both Acked-by and Reviewed-by were tags
> > reserved to people with privileges to write into the repository.
>
> Anybody should be allowed to give his own Acked-by or Reviewed-by, not
> just maintainers. Of course an acked-by from the maintainer of the area
> the patch is touching has a different weight.

To me, an Ack is reserved for people who have authority in an area,
either by being the formal maintainer of the subsystem, or by just being
an expert in that area.  An Acked-by short-circuit's the following exchange:

  Author: submit patch P
  Maintainer: P touches subsystem X, what do Expert E and sub-maintainer
M have to say about it?
  E, M: looks okay

The acked-by allows the maintainer to skip the exchange.  Of course
usually patches should go through a submaintainer tree, but sometimes
this is not feasible, either because there is no tree for that area, or
because the patch or patchset touches many subsystems.

So an ack should come from people who expect to be asked about the patch.

(but this is nit-picking, any review is welcome regardless of the tag it
comes with)

-- 
error compiling committee.c: too many arguments to function