Return-path: Received: from smtp.codeaurora.org ([198.145.29.96]:60043 "EHLO smtp.codeaurora.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751874AbcAVPyU convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:54:20 -0500 From: Kalle Valo To: "John W. Linville" Cc: Joe Perches , linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, kbuild test robot , kernel-janitors , LKML Subject: Re: wireless-drivers: random cleanup patches piling up References: <87wpr3x9ln.fsf@kamboji.qca.qualcomm.com> <1453423965.3856.22.camel@perches.com> <87k2n1x0sf.fsf@kamboji.qca.qualcomm.com> <20160122151211.GB1500@tuxdriver.com> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 17:54:12 +0200 In-Reply-To: <20160122151211.GB1500@tuxdriver.com> (John W. Linville's message of "Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:12:12 -0500") Message-ID: <87si1pvcd7.fsf@kamboji.qca.qualcomm.com> (sfid-20160122_165425_528805_A1FFC17F) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: "John W. Linville" writes: > On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 02:21:20PM +0200, Kalle Valo wrote: >> Joe Perches writes: >> >> > On Thu, 2016-01-21 at 16:58 +0200, Kalle Valo wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> >> >> I have quite a lot of random cleanup patches from new developers waiting >> >> in my queue: >> >> >> >> https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-wireless/list/?state=10&delegate=25621&order=date >> >> >> >> (Not all of them are cleanup patches, there are also few patches >> >> deferred due to other reasons, but you get the idea.) >> >> >> >> These cleanup patches usually take quite a lot of my time and I'm >> >> starting to doubt the benefit, compared to the time needed to dig >> >> through them and figuring out what to apply. And this is of course time >> >> away from other patches, so it's slowing down "real" development. >> >> >> >> I really don't know what to do. Part of me is saying that I just should >> >> drop them unless it's reviewed by a more experienced developer but on >> >> the other hand this is a good way get new developers onboard. >> >> >> >> What others think? Are these kind of patches useful? >> > >> > Some yes, mostly not really. >> > >> > While whitespace style patches have some small value, >> > very few of the new contributors that use tools like >> > "scripts/checkpatch.pl -f" on various kernel files  >> > actually continue on to submit actual defect fixing >> > or optimization or code clarity patches. >> >> That's also my experience from maintaining wireless-drivers for a year, >> this seems to be a "hit and run" type of phenomenon. > > Should we be looking for someone to run a "wireless-driver-cleanups" > tree? They could handle the cleanups and trivial stuff, and send > you a pull request a couple of times per release...? Not a bad idea! But I don't think we need a separate tree as applying patches from patchwork is easy. It should be doable that we add an account to patchwork and whenever I see a this type of trivial cleanup patch I'll assign it to the cleanup maintainer and whenever he/she thinks it's ready he assigns the patch back to me and I'll apply it. The only difficult part is finding a victim/volunteer to do that ;) -- Kalle Valo