Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Tue, 29 Jan 2002 02:40:59 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Tue, 29 Jan 2002 02:40:49 -0500 Received: from mccammon.ucsd.edu ([132.239.16.211]:60054 "EHLO mccammon.ucsd.edu") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Tue, 29 Jan 2002 02:40:40 -0500 Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 23:43:03 -0800 (PST) From: Alexei Podtelezhnikov X-X-Sender: apodtele@chemcca18.ucsd.edu To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: A modest proposal -- We need a patch penguin Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi! May I add just a pure speculation that some significant part of the problem lays in human nature of the kernel developers? The perfectly logical path of a patch progression and acceptance, which goes through the subsystem maintainers, is greatly obscured by the fact that the author's name will likely never be mentioned in the his-highness-Linus' ChangeLog. So they send them directly or post to lkml, just hoping. So Linus is flooded with patches. So the maintainers are fishing for the related bits in the lkml. So I suggest dropping the names from the holy ChangeLog at all, rather than mostly just mentioning well established authorities. Yes, this is likely to kill probably the only reward existing in this community. There are other ways. It would be cool if maintainers had released their trees before the holy resync. With rewarding ChangeLogs, this will attract the mighty community towards them. That's exactly how Alan won the love of the community. www.kernel.org should have WHO-TO with the maintainers contacts. Gee, I wonder who decides on the personality of the particular maintainer. The unmaintained parts - well, Linus, unless you find who maintains it, it's your responsibility, it's not nice to ignore patches for several months. If you are not interested, tough but even a person who you dislike will suffice the community. People just want to know who to bother. A. PS. you guessed, I have no chance to be in the ChangeLog since I only watch debates here. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/