2007-05-18 13:29:49

by Andev

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO

Heres a patch. It's my first. so any mistakes to be pardoned. :)

--- linux-2.6.21.1/Documentation/HOWTO.orig 2007-05-18 18:54:18.000000000 +0530
+++ linux-2.6.21.1/Documentation/HOWTO 2007-05-18 18:55:03.000000000 +0530
@@ -383,26 +383,6 @@ One of the best ways to put into practic
bugs reported by other people. Not only you will help to make the kernel
more stable, you'll learn to fix real world problems and you will improve
your skills, and other developers will be aware of your presence. Fixing
-bugs is one of the best ways to earn merit amongst the developers, because
-not many people like wasting time fixing other people's bugs.
-
-To work in the already reported bug reports, go to http://bugzilla.kernel.org.
-If you want to be advised of the future bug reports, you can subscribe to the
-bugme-new mailing list (only new bug reports are mailed here) or to the
-bugme-janitor mailing list (every change in the bugzilla is mailed here)
-
- http://lists.osdl.org/mailman/listinfo/bugme-new
- http://lists.osdl.org/mailman/listinfo/bugme-janitors
-
-
-
-Managing bug reports
---------------------
-
-One of the best ways to put into practice your hacking skills is by fixing
-bugs reported by other people. Not only you will help to make the kernel
-more stable, you'll learn to fix real world problems and you will improve
-your skills, and other developers will be aware of your presence. Fixing
bugs is one of the best ways to get merits among other developers, because
not many people like wasting time fixing other people's bugs.


2007-05-18 14:01:54

by Pekka Enberg

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO

Hi "Debian Developer",

On 5/18/07, debian developer <[email protected]> wrote:
> Heres a patch. It's my first. so any mistakes to be pardoned. :)

Three major problems: (1) no real name in the email, (2) no patch
description and (3) no signed-off-by line. Please see the following
URL for details:

http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/tpp.txt

2007-05-18 16:02:33

by Robert P. J. Day

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO

On Fri, 18 May 2007, debian developer wrote:
...
> -Managing bug reports
> ---------------------
> -
> -One of the best ways to put into practice your hacking skills is by fixing
> -bugs reported by other people. Not only you will help to make the kernel
> -more stable, you'll learn to fix real world problems and you will improve
> -your skills, and other developers will be aware of your presence. Fixing
> bugs is one of the best ways to get merits among other developers, because
> not many people like wasting time fixing other people's bugs.
^^^^^^^ ^^^^

you might want to find a less demeaning term for debugging than
"wasting time." just a thought.

rday
--
========================================================================
Robert P. J. Day
Linux Consulting, Training and Annoying Kernel Pedantry
Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

http://fsdev.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
========================================================================

2007-05-18 16:37:49

by Bernd Eckenfels

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO

In article <[email protected]> you wrote:
>> bugs is one of the best ways to get merits among other developers, because
>> not many people like wasting time fixing other people's bugs.
> ^^^^^^^ ^^^^
>
> you might want to find a less demeaning term for debugging than
> "wasting time." just a thought.

and it is not even correct.

Gruss
Bernd

2007-05-18 17:26:32

by Valdis Klētnieks

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO

On Fri, 18 May 2007 12:01:41 EDT, "Robert P. J. Day" said:
> On Fri, 18 May 2007, debian developer wrote:

> > -your skills, and other developers will be aware of your presence. Fixing
> > bugs is one of the best ways to get merits among other developers, because
> > not many people like wasting time fixing other people's bugs.
> ^^^^^^^ ^^^^
> you might want to find a less demeaning term for debugging than
> "wasting time." just a thought.

Wasn't his text, not his fault. At least his patch is an improvement - now
HOWTO only equates it with "wasting time" once, rather than twice. ;)


Attachments:
(No filename) (226.00 B)

2007-05-24 09:45:20

by Qi Yong

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO

On 19/05/07, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 May 2007 12:01:41 EDT, "Robert P. J. Day" said:
> > On Fri, 18 May 2007, debian developer wrote:
>
> > > -your skills, and other developers will be aware of your presence. Fixing
> > > bugs is one of the best ways to get merits among other developers, because
> > > not many people like wasting time fixing other people's bugs.
> > ^^^^^^^ ^^^^
> > you might want to find a less demeaning term for debugging than
> > "wasting time." just a thought.
>
> Wasn't his text, not his fault. At least his patch is an improvement - now
> HOWTO only equates it with "wasting time" once, rather than twice. ;)

Hello,

This duplicated paragraph problem was introduced by the following two
commits. They are one patch actually.

bughunting patch adds bug; isn't it a vivid ironic example.

and also
> +not many people like wasting time fixing other people's bugs.

Torvalds, Care to revert one commit?

commit 722385f75efd82d9f480f0765a1e97a4d83cac0d
Author: Diego Calleja <[email protected]>
Date: Thu Sep 21 22:37:10 2006 +0200

HOWTO: bug report addition

I suspect that not many people is subscribed to the bugzilla mailing list,
not surprising since the URLs doesn't seem to be in the tree :)

After fixing my english, I wonder if the following patch could be applied...

Signed-off-by: Diego Calleja <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Randy Dunlap <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <[email protected]>

commit 3f27100872b21e4cc70d07b96eeb3611b30bce63
Author: Diego Calleja <[email protected]>
Date: Sat Sep 30 23:27:49 2006 -0700

[PATCH] HOWTO: mention bughunting

Signed-off-by: Diego Calleja <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>


--
Qi Yong

2007-05-24 11:57:39

by Diego Calleja

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO

El Thu, 24 May 2007 17:45:04 +0800, "Qi Yong" <[email protected]> escribi?:

> Hello,
>
> This duplicated paragraph problem was introduced by the following two
> commits. They are one patch actually.

D'oh, it seems the patch was picked from the mailing list and merged twice,
and I didn't notice it.

> Torvalds, Care to revert one commit?

Agreed, one of them can be removed.


> commit 722385f75efd82d9f480f0765a1e97a4d83cac0d
> Author: Diego Calleja <[email protected]>
> Date: Thu Sep 21 22:37:10 2006 +0200
>
> HOWTO: bug report addition
>
> I suspect that not many people is subscribed to the bugzilla mailing list,
> not surprising since the URLs doesn't seem to be in the tree :)
>
> After fixing my english, I wonder if the following patch could be applied...
>
> Signed-off-by: Diego Calleja <[email protected]>
> Acked-by: Randy Dunlap <[email protected]>
> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <[email protected]>
>
> commit 3f27100872b21e4cc70d07b96eeb3611b30bce63
> Author: Diego Calleja <[email protected]>
> Date: Sat Sep 30 23:27:49 2006 -0700
>
> [PATCH] HOWTO: mention bughunting
>
> Signed-off-by: Diego Calleja <[email protected]>
> Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <[email protected]>
> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <[email protected]>

2007-05-24 15:50:21

by Linus Torvalds

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO



On Thu, 24 May 2007, Diego Calleja wrote:
> El Thu, 24 May 2007 17:45:04 +0800, "Qi Yong" <[email protected]> escribi?:
>
> D'oh, it seems the patch was picked from the mailing list and merged twice,
> and I didn't notice it.
>
> > Torvalds, Care to revert one commit?
>
> Agreed, one of them can be removed.

Yes, done.

Andrew - can you check that it's also removed from your queues, since it
might be there still just because it keeps applying cleanly.

You might have it described as "HOWTO: mention bughunting" rather than
"HOWTO: bug report addition".

Linus

2007-05-24 16:28:36

by Andev

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO

sept. 2006! its been there since quite a long time.
now what happens to my patch submitted to Greg???

On 5/24/07, Linus Torvalds <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 24 May 2007, Diego Calleja wrote:
> > El Thu, 24 May 2007 17:45:04 +0800, "Qi Yong" <[email protected]> escribi?:
> >
> > D'oh, it seems the patch was picked from the mailing list and merged twice,
> > and I didn't notice it.
> >
> > > Torvalds, Care to revert one commit?
> >
> > Agreed, one of them can be removed.
>
> Yes, done.
>
> Andrew - can you check that it's also removed from your queues, since it
> might be there still just because it keeps applying cleanly.
>
> You might have it described as "HOWTO: mention bughunting" rather than
> "HOWTO: bug report addition".
>
> Linus

2007-05-25 07:39:00

by Qi Yong

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO

On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 08:49:12AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, 24 May 2007, Diego Calleja wrote:
> > El Thu, 24 May 2007 17:45:04 +0800, "Qi Yong" <[email protected]> escribi?:
> >
> > D'oh, it seems the patch was picked from the mailing list and merged twice,
> > and I didn't notice it.
> >
> > > Torvalds, Care to revert one commit?
> >
> > Agreed, one of them can be removed.
>
> Yes, done.
>
> Andrew - can you check that it's also removed from your queues, since it
> might be there still just because it keeps applying cleanly.

People's fault, not tools'.

>
> You might have it described as "HOWTO: mention bughunting" rather than
> "HOWTO: bug report addition".
>
> Linus

Sorry, my previous comment was not accurate. The two patches are different,
not identical:


diff -u howto-mention-bughunting howto-bug-report-addition
--- howto-mention-bughunting 2007-05-25 09:12:47.513596296 +0800
+++ howto-bug-report-addition 2007-05-25 09:12:58.914245983 +0800
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
--- a/Documentation/HOWTO
+++ b/Documentation/HOWTO
-@@ -375,6 +375,26 @@ of information is needed by the kernel developers to help track down the
- problem.
+@@ -395,6 +395,26 @@ bugme-janitor mailing list (every change in the bugzilla is mailed here)
+


+Managing bug reports
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
+bugs reported by other people. Not only you will help to make the kernel
+more stable, you'll learn to fix real world problems and you will improve
+your skills, and other developers will be aware of your presence. Fixing
-+bugs is one of the best ways to earn merit amongst the developers, because
++bugs is one of the best ways to get merits among other developers, because
+not many people like wasting time fixing other people's bugs.
+
+To work in the already reported bug reports, go to http://bugzilla.kernel.org.


The second patch howto-bug-report-addition was an improvement, but was made
wrongly, thus added the duplication.

We should go with howto-bug-report-addition. Please take this:

Signed-off-by: Qi Yong <[email protected]>
---

diff --git a/Documentation/HOWTO b/Documentation/HOWTO
index ced9207..f5e1b6d 100644
--- a/Documentation/HOWTO
+++ b/Documentation/HOWTO
@@ -383,7 +383,7 @@ One of the best ways to put into practice your hacking skills is by fixing
bugs reported by other people. Not only you will help to make the kernel
more stable, you'll learn to fix real world problems and you will improve
your skills, and other developers will be aware of your presence. Fixing
-bugs is one of the best ways to earn merit amongst the developers, because
+bugs is one of the best ways to get merits among other developers, because
not many people like wasting time fixing other people's bugs.

To work in the already reported bug reports, go to http://bugzilla.kernel.org.


--
Qi Yong

2007-05-25 16:24:58

by Scott Preece

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO

On 5/18/07, Bernd Eckenfels <[email protected]> wrote:
> In article <[email protected]> you wrote:
> >> bugs is one of the best ways to get merits among other developers, because
> >> not many people like wasting time fixing other people's bugs.
> > ^^^^^^^ ^^^^
> >
> > you might want to find a less demeaning term for debugging than
---

I'm pretty sure an economist would describe debugging as wasted time
(non-value-add). The point being, of course, that the original coder's
mistakes caused someone else to have to waste time, time that could
otherwise have been spent adding value, fixing the problem.

However, it might be phrased more diplomatically in this context, like
"because you are sacrificing time that could be spent adding features,
to fix somebody else's mistakes".

scott

2007-05-25 20:00:21

by Bernd Eckenfels

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: [PATCH - 1/1] Documentation/HOWTO

On Fri, May 25, 2007 at 11:24:46AM -0500, Scott Preece wrote:
> However, it might be phrased more diplomatically in this context, like
> "because you are sacrificing time that could be spent adding features,
> to fix somebody else's mistakes".

Not all Bugs are mistakes of the coder. I still think it is not correct to
blame developers. And it is also not a good idea to treat helping hands as
second class only because they improve instead of create things.

Linux Kernel is developed in a collaborative evolutionary process. The
documentation change is completely wrong worded.

(However the idea to ask ppl to look for small clear tasks, especially if
not everybody has the option to work on it (hardware) is good) - and very
rewarding.

Gruss
Bernd