From: "Paolo Ciarrocchi" Subject: Re: [PATCH] [Coding Style]: misc fixes for fs/ext{3,4}/acl.{c,h} from checkpatch.pl Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2008 21:03:53 +0100 Message-ID: <4d8e3fd30801041203s2f017f20ld9fcbc82912468fe@mail.gmail.com> References: <1199452896-20145-1-git-send-email-mathieu.segaud@regala.cx> <20080104134458.GE17436@mit.edu> <20080104190137.GJ17436@mit.edu> <20080104194129.GA16962@one.firstfloor.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: "Theodore Tso" , "Mathieu Segaud" , akpm@linux-foundation.org, linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org To: "Andi Kleen" Return-path: Received: from nz-out-0506.google.com ([64.233.162.233]:27492 "EHLO nz-out-0506.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753297AbYADUD4 (ORCPT ); Fri, 4 Jan 2008 15:03:56 -0500 Received: by nz-out-0506.google.com with SMTP id s18so1444609nze.1 for ; Fri, 04 Jan 2008 12:03:53 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <20080104194129.GA16962@one.firstfloor.org> Content-Disposition: inline Sender: linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Jan 4, 2008 8:41 PM, Andi Kleen wrote: [...] > > I don't know, because people want to be able to say that they've > > contributed fixes to the Linux kernel? > > My pet theory is that it is similar to the "unsubscribe me" > cascade effect you sometimes see on mailing lists. One person > sends a "unsubscribe me" to everybody and then suddenly a lot of > people think that is the right way to unsubscribe and reply > with lots of "unsubscribe me too". > > So one person sends a cleanup and it gets accepted and suddenly > other people realize it is very easy to do these cleanups > (not realizing the hidden costs they have) and then they go on... Since I'm one of those people that sent "Codying style fixes" patches I give my contribution to this discussion as well. I think that _one_ of the reasons that made a few people sent this kind of patches to the list is because checkpatch.pl is far better then any other kerneljanitor scripts/easy task and _seems_ to be an easy way to start understanding the code, creation of patches and process in general. > I thought we had the janitor project to steer these people into > more useful directions, but apparently that is not well known > enough anymore. Perhaps it just needs to be more regularly announced? > > Although I must admit I am not 100% happy with kernel-janitors > either -- e.g. a few times I sent suggestions about easy things > someone could do to that list, but never heard anything back. > > Anyways there are lots of ways to do trivial cleanups in a useful > way and if people want to do this perhaps they should just > ask on linux-kernel and people suggest something? Yes please do that. Even if fixing errors reported by checkpatch.pl still sounds like a useful way to spent a couple of hours. Maybe our mistake was to send the patches to lkml instead of to trivial@kernel.org or to kerneljanitors? I mean, I now understand the rationales behind your complaints but I don't think it's good idea to discourage people willing to perform easy task. They just need guidance in order to be useful. > My hope here is of course that these trivial changes are primarily > used as a way to get "the feet wet" to understand the procedures > for contribuing larger not quite as trivial changes Agreed. ciao, -- Paolo http://paolo.ciarrocchi.googlepages.com/