-4) Select e-mail destination.
+4) Style check your changes.
+
+Check your patch for basic style violations, details of which can be
+found in Documentation/CodingStyle. Failure to do so simply wastes
+the reviewers time and will get your patch rejected, probabally
+without even being read.
+
+At a minimum you should check your patches with the patch style
+checker prior to submission (scripts/patchcheck.pl). You should
+be able to justify all violations that remain in your patch.
+
+
+
+5) Select e-mail destination.
Look through the MAINTAINERS file and the source code, and determine
if your change applies to a specific subsystem of the kernel, with
Linus Torvalds is the final arbiter of all changes accepted into the
-Linux kernel. His e-mail address is <torvalds@osdl.org>. He gets
-a lot of e-mail, so typically you should do your best to -avoid- sending
-him e-mail.
+Linux kernel. His e-mail address is <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>.
+He gets a lot of e-mail, so typically you should do your best to -avoid-
+sending him e-mail.
Patches which are bug fixes, are "obvious" changes, or similarly
require little discussion should be sent or CC'd to Linus. Patches
-5) Select your CC (e-mail carbon copy) list.
+6) Select your CC (e-mail carbon copy) list.
Unless you have a reason NOT to do so, CC linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org.
trivial@kernel.org managed by Adrian Bunk; which collects "trivial"
patches. Trivial patches must qualify for one of the following rules:
Spelling fixes in documentation
- Spelling fixes which could break grep(1).
+ Spelling fixes which could break grep(1)
Warning fixes (cluttering with useless warnings is bad)
Compilation fixes (only if they are actually correct)
Runtime fixes (only if they actually fix things)
- Removing use of deprecated functions/macros (eg. check_region).
+ Removing use of deprecated functions/macros (eg. check_region)
Contact detail and documentation fixes
Non-portable code replaced by portable code (even in arch-specific,
since people copy, as long as it's trivial)
- Any fix by the author/maintainer of the file. (ie. patch monkey
+ Any fix by the author/maintainer of the file (ie. patch monkey
in re-transmission mode)
URL: <http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/bunk/trivial/>
-
-6) No MIME, no links, no compression, no attachments. Just plain text.
+7) No MIME, no links, no compression, no attachments. Just plain text.
Linus and other kernel developers need to be able to read and comment
on the changes you are submitting. It is important for a kernel
you to re-send them using MIME.
+WARNING: Some mailers like Mozilla send your messages with
+---- message header ----
+Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
+---- message header ----
+The problem is that "format=flowed" makes some of the mailers
+on receiving side to replace TABs with spaces and do similar
+changes. Thus the patches from you can look corrupted.
+
+To fix this just make your mozilla defaults/pref/mailnews.js file to look like:
+pref("mailnews.send_plaintext_flowed", false); // RFC 2646=======
+pref("mailnews.display.disable_format_flowed_support", true);
+
+
-7) E-mail size.
+8) E-mail size.
-When sending patches to Linus, always follow step #6.
+When sending patches to Linus, always follow step #7.
Large changes are not appropriate for mailing lists, and some
maintainers. If your patch, uncompressed, exceeds 40 kB in size,
-8) Name your kernel version.
+9) Name your kernel version.
It is important to note, either in the subject line or in the patch
description, the kernel version to which this patch applies.
-9) Don't get discouraged. Re-submit.
+10) Don't get discouraged. Re-submit.
After you have submitted your change, be patient and wait. If Linus
likes your change and applies it, it will appear in the next version
It is quite common for Linus to "drop" your patch without comment.
That's the nature of the system. If he drops your patch, it could be
due to
-* Your patch did not apply cleanly to the latest kernel version
+* Your patch did not apply cleanly to the latest kernel version.
* Your patch was not sufficiently discussed on linux-kernel.
-* A style issue (see section 2),
-* An e-mail formatting issue (re-read this section)
-* A technical problem with your change
-* He gets tons of e-mail, and yours got lost in the shuffle
-* You are being annoying (See Figure 1)
+* A style issue (see section 2).
+* An e-mail formatting issue (re-read this section).
+* A technical problem with your change.
+* He gets tons of e-mail, and yours got lost in the shuffle.
+* You are being annoying.
When in doubt, solicit comments on linux-kernel mailing list.
-10) Include PATCH in the subject
+11) Include PATCH in the subject
Due to high e-mail traffic to Linus, and to linux-kernel, it is common
convention to prefix your subject line with [PATCH]. This lets Linus
-11) Sign your work
+12) Sign your work
To improve tracking of who did what, especially with patches that can
percolate to their final resting place in the kernel through several
point out some special detail about the sign-off.
-12) The canonical patch format
+13) When to use Acked-by:
+
+The Signed-off-by: tag indicates that the signer was involved in the
+development of the patch, or that he/she was in the patch's delivery path.
+
+If a person was not directly involved in the preparation or handling of a
+patch but wishes to signify and record their approval of it then they can
+arrange to have an Acked-by: line added to the patch's changelog.
+
+Acked-by: is often used by the maintainer of the affected code when that
+maintainer neither contributed to nor forwarded the patch.
+
+Acked-by: is not as formal as Signed-off-by:. It is a record that the acker
+has at least reviewed the patch and has indicated acceptance. Hence patch
+mergers will sometimes manually convert an acker's "yep, looks good to me"
+into an Acked-by:.
+
+Acked-by: does not necessarily indicate acknowledgement of the entire patch.
+For example, if a patch affects multiple subsystems and has an Acked-by: from
+one subsystem maintainer then this usually indicates acknowledgement of just
+the part which affects that maintainer's code. Judgement should be used here.
+ When in doubt people should refer to the original discussion in the mailing
+list archives.
+
+
+14) The canonical patch format
The canonical patch subject line is:
The "summary phrase" in the email's Subject should concisely
describe the patch which that email contains. The "summary
phrase" should not be a filename. Do not use the same "summary
-phrase" for every patch in a whole patch series.
+phrase" for every patch in a whole patch series (where a "patch
+series" is an ordered sequence of multiple, related patches).
Bear in mind that the "summary phrase" of your email becomes
a globally-unique identifier for that patch. It propagates
Nuff said. If your code deviates too much from this, it is likely
to be rejected without further review, and without comment.
+Check your patches with the patch style checker prior to submission
+(scripts/checkpatch.pl). You should be able to justify all
+violations that remain in your patch.
+
2) #ifdefs are ugly
Andrew Morton, "The perfect patch" (tpp).
<http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/tpp.txt>
-Jeff Garzik, "Linux kernel patch submission format."
+Jeff Garzik, "Linux kernel patch submission format".
<http://linux.yyz.us/patch-format.html>
-Greg Kroah-Hartman "How to piss off a kernel subsystem maintainer".
+Greg Kroah-Hartman, "How to piss off a kernel subsystem maintainer".
<http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/03/31/>
<http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/07/08/>
<http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/10/19/>
NO!!!! No more huge patch bombs to linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org people!
<http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=112112749912944&w=2>
-Kernel Documentation/CodingStyle
+Kernel Documentation/CodingStyle:
<http://sosdg.org/~coywolf/lxr/source/Documentation/CodingStyle>
-Linus Torvald's mail on the canonical patch format:
+Linus Torvalds's mail on the canonical patch format:
<http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/4/7/183>
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git.samba.org / sfrench / cifs-2.6.git / blobdiff