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

[Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws>]

On 03/14/2012 08:50 AM, Andreas Färber wrote:
> Am 13.03.2012 14:27, schrieb Avi Kivity:
>> 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.
>
> The way I saw it, Acked-by means that the person asserts that the
> contents of the change is sensible, and when I use it I either tested it
> myself or am absolutely sure it doesn't break the build.
>
> Reviewed-by I use by comparison to assert that a patch reasonably
> conforms to our Coding guidelines, has an SoB and does nothing obviously
> stupid but that I did not bother to smoke-test on my system.
>
> What I have wondered is, is there any semantic difference between "Ack",
> "Acked", "ACK" and "Acked-by: name<email>"? I.e., when someone replies
> with "Ack", should one document that as an Acked-by for a PULL?

No, Acked-by: name<email> is a formal statement.  You shouldn't infer an 
Acked-by IMHO.

FWIW, you can always ask for an actual Acked-by if someone responds with just Ack.

>
> Similarly, should "Looks good." be translated to Reviewed-by or does it
> mean less?

It means less.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

> Andreas
>