http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/quilt
Andrew Morton's patch scripts:
-http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/
+http://userweb.kernel.org/~akpm/stuff/patch-scripts.tar.gz
Instead of these scripts, quilt is the recommended patch management
tool (see above).
things like "update driver X", "bug fix for driver X", or "this patch
includes updates for subsystem X. Please apply."
+The maintainer will thank you if you write your patch description in a
+form which can be easily pulled into Linux's source code management
+system, git, as a "commit log". See #15, below.
+
If your description starts to get long, that's a sign that you probably
need to split up your patch. See #3, next.
+When you submit or resubmit a patch or patch series, include the
+complete patch description and justification for it. Don't just
+say that this is version N of the patch (series). Don't expect the
+patch merger to refer back to earlier patch versions or referenced
+URLs to find the patch description and put that into the patch.
+I.e., the patch (series) and its description should be self-contained.
+This benefits both the patch merger(s) and reviewers. Some reviewers
+probably didn't even receive earlier versions of the patch.
+
+If the patch fixes a logged bug entry, refer to that bug entry by
+number and URL.
3) Separate your changes.
a man-pages patch, or at least a notification of the change,
so that some information makes its way into the manual pages.
-Even if the maintainer did not respond in step #4, make sure to ALWAYS
+Even if the maintainer did not respond in step #5, make sure to ALWAYS
copy the maintainer when you change their code.
For small patches you may want to CC the Trivial Patch Monkey
-trivial@kernel.org managed by Jesper Juhl; which collects "trivial"
-patches. Trivial patches must qualify for one of the following rules:
+trivial@kernel.org which collects "trivial" patches. Have a look
+into the MAINTAINERS file for its current manager.
+Trivial patches must qualify for one of the following rules:
Spelling fixes in documentation
Spelling fixes which could break grep(1)
Warning fixes (cluttering with useless warnings is bad)
since people copy, as long as it's trivial)
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/juhl/trivial/>
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,
+maintainers. If your patch, uncompressed, exceeds 300 kB in size,
it is preferred that you store your patch on an Internet-accessible
server, and provide instead a URL (link) pointing to your patch.
The sign-off is a simple line at the end of the explanation for the
patch, which certifies that you wrote it or otherwise have the right to
-pass it on as a open-source patch. The rules are pretty simple: if you
+pass it on as an open-source patch. The rules are pretty simple: if you
can certify the below:
Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1
have been included in the discussion
-14) Using Test-by: and Reviewed-by:
+14) Using Reported-by:, Tested-by: and Reviewed-by:
+
+If this patch fixes a problem reported by somebody else, consider adding a
+Reported-by: tag to credit the reporter for their contribution. Please
+note that this tag should not be added without the reporter's permission,
+especially if the problem was not reported in a public forum. That said,
+if we diligently credit our bug reporters, they will, hopefully, be
+inspired to help us again in the future.
A Tested-by: tag indicates that the patch has been successfully tested (in
some environment) by the person named. This tag informs maintainers that
reviewers and to inform maintainers of the degree of review which has been
done on the patch. Reviewed-by: tags, when supplied by reviewers known to
understand the subject area and to perform thorough reviews, will normally
-increase the liklihood of your patch getting into the kernel.
+increase the likelihood of your patch getting into the kernel.
15) The canonical patch format
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
-all the way into the git changelog. The "summary phrase" may
-later be used in developer discussions which refer to the patch.
-People will want to google for the "summary phrase" to read
-discussion regarding that patch.
+Bear in mind that the "summary phrase" of your email becomes a
+globally-unique identifier for that patch. It propagates all the way
+into the git changelog. The "summary phrase" may later be used in
+developer discussions which refer to the patch. People will want to
+google for the "summary phrase" to read discussion regarding that
+patch. It will also be the only thing that people may quickly see
+when, two or three months later, they are going through perhaps
+thousands of patches using tools such as "gitk" or "git log
+--oneline".
+
+For these reasons, the "summary" must be no more than 70-75
+characters, and it must describe both what the patch changes, as well
+as why the patch might be necessary. It is challenging to be both
+succinct and descriptive, but that is what a well-written summary
+should do.
+
+The "summary phrase" may be prefixed by tags enclosed in square
+brackets: "Subject: [PATCH tag] <summary phrase>". The tags are not
+considered part of the summary phrase, but describe how the patch
+should be treated. Common tags might include a version descriptor if
+the multiple versions of the patch have been sent out in response to
+comments (i.e., "v1, v2, v3"), or "RFC" to indicate a request for
+comments. If there are four patches in a patch series the individual
+patches may be numbered like this: 1/4, 2/4, 3/4, 4/4. This assures
+that developers understand the order in which the patches should be
+applied and that they have reviewed or applied all of the patches in
+the patch series.
A couple of example Subjects:
The explanation body will be committed to the permanent source
changelog, so should make sense to a competent reader who has long
since forgotten the immediate details of the discussion that might
-have led to this patch.
+have led to this patch. Including symptoms of the failure which the
+patch addresses (kernel log messages, oops messages, etc.) is
+especially useful for people who might be searching the commit logs
+looking for the applicable patch. If a patch fixes a compile failure,
+it may not be necessary to include _all_ of the compile failures; just
+enough that it is likely that someone searching for the patch can find
+it. As in the "summary phrase", it is important to be both succinct as
+well as descriptive.
The "---" marker line serves the essential purpose of marking for patch
handling tools where the changelog message ends.
One good use for the additional comments after the "---" marker is for
-a diffstat, to show what files have changed, and the number of inserted
-and deleted lines per file. A diffstat is especially useful on bigger
-patches. Other comments relevant only to the moment or the maintainer,
-not suitable for the permanent changelog, should also go here.
-Use diffstat options "-p 1 -w 70" so that filenames are listed from the
-top of the kernel source tree and don't use too much horizontal space
-(easily fit in 80 columns, maybe with some indentation).
+a diffstat, to show what files have changed, and the number of
+inserted and deleted lines per file. A diffstat is especially useful
+on bigger patches. Other comments relevant only to the moment or the
+maintainer, not suitable for the permanent changelog, should also go
+here. A good example of such comments might be "patch changelogs"
+which describe what has changed between the v1 and v2 version of the
+patch.
+
+If you are going to include a diffstat after the "---" marker, please
+use diffstat options "-p 1 -w 70" so that filenames are listed from
+the top of the kernel source tree and don't use too much horizontal
+space (easily fit in 80 columns, maybe with some indentation).
See more details on the proper patch format in the following
references.
----------------------
Andrew Morton, "The perfect patch" (tpp).
- <http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/tpp.txt>
+ <http://userweb.kernel.org/~akpm/stuff/tpp.txt>
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".
- <http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/03/31/>
- <http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/07/08/>
- <http://www.kroah.com/log/2005/10/19/>
- <http://www.kroah.com/log/2006/01/11/>
+ <http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/maintainer.html>
+ <http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/maintainer-02.html>
+ <http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/maintainer-03.html>
+ <http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/maintainer-04.html>
+ <http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/maintainer-05.html>
NO!!!! No more huge patch bombs to linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org people!
<http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=112112749912944&w=2>
Linus Torvalds's mail on the canonical patch format:
<http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/4/7/183>
+
+Andi Kleen, "On submitting kernel patches"
+ Some strategies to get difficult or controversial changes in.
+ http://halobates.de/on-submitting-patches.pdf
+
--
Code Review / linux-2.6.git / blobdiff