Re: [PATCH v2] MAINTAINERS: Clarify the meaning of nested maintainership

[Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>]

On Thu, Apr 28, 2016 at 11:28:20AM +0100, Wei Liu wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 27, 2016 at 05:06:27PM +0100, George Dunlap wrote:
> > Clarify the meaning of nested maintainership.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: George Dunlap <george.dunlap@citrix.com>
> > ---
> > We had a discussion about the meaning of nested maintainership at the
> > recent Xen Hackathon.  The notes of that meeting can be found on this
> > list [1].  No decision is official until discussed on this list, so
> > consider this patch the official proposal for this change, and object
> > or ask for clarification accordingly.
> > 
> > Compared to v1, there is one change that is worth pointing out: The
> > claim that THE REST consists of all committers.  This is the case at
> > the moment, but this change would codify that this is an invariant we
> > intend to keep going forward.
> > 
> > The advantage of this is that the dispute resolution mentioned in this
> > patch for maintainers who can't agree lines up directly with the
> > fall-back for broader community issues upon which we can't reach
> > consensus.
> > 
> > [1] marc.info/?i=<EDB48431-C3EF-4461-B2D2-3AB95EA6C392@gmail.com>
> > 
> > Changes in v2:
> > - fixed spelling of "maintainer"
> > - fixed path of multi.c
> > - clarified that the resolution by REST would be by *majority* vote
> > - Asserted that The REST consists of all committers
> > 
> > CC: Ian Jackson <ian.jackson@eu.citrix.com>
> > CC: Jan Beulich <jbeulich@suse.com>
> > CC: Keir Fraser <keir@xen.org>
> > CC: Tim Deegan <tim@xen.org>
> > CC: Wei Liu <wei.liu2@citrix.com>
> > CC: Konrad Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>
> > CC: Andrew Cooper <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com>
> > CC: Lars Kurth <lars.kurth@citrix.com>
> 
> 
> Acked-by: Wei Liu <wei.liu2@citrix.com>

Acked-by: Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>
> 
> > ---
> >  MAINTAINERS | 34 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> >  1 file changed, 34 insertions(+)
> > 
> > diff --git a/MAINTAINERS b/MAINTAINERS
> > index 5af7a0c..9057f96 100644
> > --- a/MAINTAINERS
> > +++ b/MAINTAINERS
> > @@ -94,6 +94,40 @@ Descriptions of section entries:
> >  	      printk, pr_info or pr_err
> >  	   One regex pattern per line.  Multiple K: lines acceptable.
> >  
> > +
> > +The meaning of nesting:
> > +
> > +Many maintainership areas are "nested": for example, there are entries
> > +for xen/arch/x86 as well as xen/arch/x86/mm, and even
> > +xen/arch/x86/mm/shadow; and there is a section at the end called "THE
> > +REST" which lists all committers.  The meaning of nesting is that:
> > +
> > +1. Under normal circumstances, the Ack of the most specific maintainer
> > +is both necessary and sufficient to get a change to a given file
> > +committed.  So a change to xen/arch/x86/mm/shadow/multi.c requires the
> > +the Ack of the xen/arch/x86/mm/shadow maintainer for that part of the
> > +patch, but would not require the Ack of the xen/arch/x86 maintainer or
> > +the xen/arch/x86/mm maintainer.
> > +
> > +(A patch of course needs acks from the maintainers of each file that
> > +it changes; so a patch which changes xen/arch/x86/traps.c,
> > +xen/arch/x86/mm/p2m.c, and xen/arch/x86/mm/shadow/multi.c would
> > +require an Ack from each of the three sets of maintainers.)
> > +
> > +2. In unusual circumstances, a more general maintainer's Ack can stand
> > +in for or even overrule a specific maintainer's Ack.  Unusual
> > +circumstances might include:
> > + - The patch is fixing a high-priority issue causing immediate pain,
> > + and the more specific maintainer is not available.
> > + - The more specific maintainer has not responded either to the
> > + original patch, nor to "pings", within a reasonable amount of time.
> > + - The more general maintainer wants to overrule the more specific
> > + maintainer on some issue. (This should be exceptional.)
> > + - In the case of a disagreement between maintainers, THE REST can
> > + settle the matter by majority vote.  (This should be very exceptional
> > + indeed.)
> > +
> > +
> >  Maintainers List (try to look for most precise areas first)
> >  
> >  		-----------------------------------
> > -- 
> > 2.1.4
> > 

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