driver reviewer rotation
Subsystems (2)
Jakub Kicinski
maintainerHi!
As some of you may have noticed we have restarted a structured reviewer rotation. There should be an uptick in the number of reviews when you post patches.
Here is some details, and background info.
The majority of submissions we get are for drivers. We have tried to create a driver review rotation a while back, to increase the review coverage, but it fizzled out. We're taking a second go at it.
The new rotation is limited in length (4 weeks) and focused on involving NIC teams (nVidia, Intel, Broadcom, plus Meta/FB to make it 4), rather than particular individuals. I picked the NIC vendors for multiple reasons - with small exceptions they send more patches than they review. Secondly they have rather large teams, which makes it easier to create a stable rotation - employees from the same org can load balance and cover for each other. Last but not least, I have a possibly unfounded belief, that in a vendor setting the additional structure of a review rotation is doubly beneficial as "organized efforts" are usually easier to justify to corporate overlords.
Please feel free to reach out if you'd like to also be a part of a review rotation. We can start a second circle or double up one of the shifts... we'll figure something out. Also please reach out with any comments / concerns / feedback.
FWIW any "corporate involvement" in the community makes me feel uneasy (and I hope that other community members share this feeling). So please don't view this as any form of corporate collusion or giving companies themselves influence. This is also not an indictment against the community members who are already investing their time in reviewing code, and making this project work...
HTH
Quoted 13 lines · Jakub Kicinski
Hi!
As some of you may have noticed we have restarted a structured reviewer rotation. There should be an uptick in the number of reviews when you post patches.
Here is some details, and background info.
The majority of submissions we get are for drivers. We have tried to create a driver review rotation a while back, to increase the review coverage, but it fizzled out. We're taking a second go at it.
Quoted 10 lines
The new rotation is limited in length (4 weeks) and focused on involving NIC teams (nVidia, Intel, Broadcom, plus Meta/FB to make it 4), rather than particular individuals. I picked the NIC vendors for multiple reasons - with small exceptions they send more patches than they review. Secondly they have rather large teams, which makes it easier to create a stable rotation - employees from the same org can load balance and cover for each other. Last but not least, I have a possibly unfounded belief, that in a vendor setting the additional structure of a review rotation is doubly beneficial as "organized efforts" are usually easier to justify to corporate overlords.
+1.
I am assuming this is principally ethernet?
Because it would be so wonderful if the developers of drivers for wifi & 5g, (especially) on phones, and aps, and clients of all sorts, all somehow were enabled to more regularly got together... to do something other than commiserate.
I was looking over the 2016 make-wifi-fast project description (after gfiber pulled out) the other day, wishing that somehow, some set of corps that cared about good wifi and lte experiences would get together to make it better for everyone.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Se36svYE1Uzpppe1HWnEyat_sAGghB3kE285LElJBW4/edit#
And while it did get a bit better, the work remains kind of lonely. I find sitting in a virtual shared videoconference to be faster (and more fun) than reviewing code by yourself.
"Pain shared is decreased. Joy shared, increased." - Spider Robinson.
Quoted 5 lines
Please feel free to reach out if you'd like to also be a part of a review rotation. We can start a second circle or double up one of the shifts... we'll figure something out. Also please reach out with any comments / concerns / feedback.
My principal thing on the ethernet front has been merely to try and ensure subsystems like BQL are in new ethernet drivers. If there was an AI other than me that could get "triggered" on that front that would be great. BQL itself is showing its age, tho...
Quoted 8 lines
FWIW any "corporate involvement" in the community makes me feel uneasy (and I hope that other community members share this feeling). So please don't view this as any form of corporate collusion or giving companies themselves influence. This is also not an indictment against the community members who are already investing their time in reviewing code, and making this project work...
HTH
Signature · 3 lines
This song goes out to all the folk that thought Stadia would work: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dtaht_the-mushroom-song-activity-6981366665607352320-FXtz Dave Täht CEO, TekLibre, LLC
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My principal thing on the ethernet front has been merely to try and ensure subsystems like BQL are in new ethernet drivers. If there was an AI other than me that could get "triggered" on that front that would be great. BQL itself is showing its age, tho...
Feel free to review very specific parts of a new driver. You don't need to review it all.
I would say in general, the parts of a driver actually moving frames around is under reviewed. So if anybody does have an interest in that, i'm sure reviews for just that would be welcome.
Andrew