Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757820AbZDPCb0 (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:31:26 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751925AbZDPCbR (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:31:17 -0400 Received: from thunk.org ([69.25.196.29]:52005 "EHLO thunker.thunk.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751029AbZDPCbQ (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:31:16 -0400 Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:31:03 -0400 From: Theodore Tso To: Rusty Russell Cc: Linus Torvalds , Ingo Molnar , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Andrew Morton , Dave Jones Subject: Re: Fix quilt merge error in acpi-cpufreq.c Message-ID: <20090416023103.GI21586@mit.edu> Mail-Followup-To: Theodore Tso , Rusty Russell , Linus Torvalds , Ingo Molnar , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Andrew Morton , Dave Jones References: <200904140159.n3E1x1K1014705@hera.kernel.org> <200904152014.11717.rusty@rustcorp.com.au> <200904161057.07108.rusty@rustcorp.com.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <200904161057.07108.rusty@rustcorp.com.au> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: tytso@mit.edu X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on thunker.thunk.org); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2445 Lines: 52 On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 10:57:05AM +0930, Rusty Russell wrote: > Ingo wants them. Example: > > lguest: don't expect linear addresses in gdt pvops > > Impact: fix guest crash 'lguest: bad read address 0x4800000 len 256' > > What's more important in the subject line? That it fixes a crash, or what it > does? Well, consider that 2 or 3 months later, when we're trying to find a potential commit (say, because we're trying to find a potential fix that needs to be forward ported to a distro kernel, or some such), the initial summary line is what is going to be visible in gitk or via "git log --oneline" (or "git log --pretty=oneline --abbrev-commit" for older git versions). So when I try to create git log messages, I try to make the first line useful for folks who might be sorting through potentially thousands of patches via gitk or git log --oneline. So I might do something like lguest: fix crash caused by expecting linear address in gdt pvops and then making sure the body of the message goes into detail about the oops message so that someone who is searching "git log" might find the commit. I also try to include relevant bugzilla numbers (for distro's as well as the kernel bugzilla system).[1] I think it was you who once quoted Will Strunk, "Always write with deep sympathy for the reader"? This definitely applies to git commit messages, both the initial one-line summary as well as the body. [1] I tend to use "Addresses-Debian-bug: #12345" in e2fsprogs git repository, but the convention in the kernel commit logs seems to be to use the URL to the bugzilla entry. Since it's stuff that's intended to be grep'ed, I put it at the end of the commit body, just before the Signed-off-by: messages. - Ted P.S. One thing wihch I'd like to suggest is for folks to use "fix lock ordering" instead of "fix lockdep warning". I've been guilty of using "lockdep warning" mmyself, and I've realized that when searching to see if a reported hang might have been fixed, the brain has a tendency to skip over a summary line that says "warning"; and a commit that fixes a lockdep warning is more serious, than say, for example, fixing some whining warning message from gcc. -- 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/