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From:   Paul Barker <paul@pbarker.dev>
To:     Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc:     Paul Barker <paul@pbarker.dev>
Subject: [RFC PATCH] MAINTAINERS: Add note on patches to MAINTAINERS itself
Date:   Tue, 15 Jun 2021 21:01:41 +0100
Message-Id: <20210615200141.8573-1-paul@pbarker.dev>
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Since there is no entry in the maintainers list for the MAINTAINERS file
itself, we should add a short note on how to handle patches to this
file.

Signed-off-by: Paul Barker <paul@pbarker.dev>
---

I'm in the process of updating device tree files as part of $JOB and
would like to add relevant entries to the MAINTAINERS file. I've
searched through the maintainer list, read what I can find in the docs
and ran scripts/get_maintainer.pl but I can't see a clear statement of
where to send patches which modify MAINTAINERS. Looking at a couple of
examples of previous patches which modified MAINTAINERS and looking up
the relevant emails on lore.kernel.org I've made my best guess on how
these changes should be handled. This patch adds that best guess as a
note to the MAINTAINERS list so it's easy for folks to find in the
future.

This is an RFC as others probably know the correct way to handle patches
to the MAINTAINERS file. Even if this "best guess" is wrong I hope it
highlights that such a note would be useful. I've treated this patch as
a docs patch, please let me know if it should be sent to different
maintainers/lists.

 MAINTAINERS | 6 ++++++
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)

diff --git a/MAINTAINERS b/MAINTAINERS
index bc0ceef87b73..b7873dad9997 100644
--- a/MAINTAINERS
+++ b/MAINTAINERS
@@ -143,6 +143,12 @@ Maintainers List
           first. When adding to this list, please keep the entries in
           alphabetical order.
 
+.. note:: There is no entry in this list for the MAINTAINERS file itself.
+          Patches which modify existing MAINTAINERS entries should be sent to
+          all other maintainers in the relevant entry. When adding new
+          MAINTAINERS entries please use ``scripts/get_maintainer.pl`` to find
+          other maintainers with overlapping entries in this list.
+
 3C59X NETWORK DRIVER
 M:	Steffen Klassert <klassert@kernel.org>
 L:	netdev@vger.kernel.org
-- 
2.32.0