New documentation text describing how to report issues (aka "reporting-bugs rewritten")
Subsystems (6)
Thorsten Leemhuis
maintainerv4 cover New documentation text describing how to report issues (aka "reporting-bugs rewritten")
This series adds a new and mostly finished document describing how to report issues with the Linux kernel to its developers. It is designed to be a lot more straight forward and yet more detailed than the current text about this (Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst). The new text still needs to be reviewed by more people and a few open issues will need discussion. To make these tasks easier, it was decided to add this document to the kernel sources in parallel to the existing text for now:
https://lkml.kernel.org/r/[email protected]
The first patch in the series adds the CC-BY-4.0 license to the LICENSES/preferred/ directory, as the main author wants to make it easy for others to use the new text as a base when writing about this topic in books or on websites. He for now went with for dual-licensing the text under GPL-2.0+ and CC-BY-4.0. We shouldn't lose much when people use the more liberal of the two, but gain one thing: it increases chances that texts about this topic are based on this one, which should make them more accurate and to our liking.
The last patch in the series adds a note to Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst, declaring it obsolete and telling readers to head over to the new text, as discussed after the v2 submission.
To see how the new text relates to the current reporting-bugs.rst document, see v2 of this patchset, which gradually replaced the old text with the new (which hasn't changed much since then):
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[email protected]/
To see how the new text from v3 and v4 relates to the one from v2 or v1, compare these files with tools like meld or kdiff3:
https://gitlab.com/knurd42/linux/-/raw/reporting-bugs/Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs-v4-wrapped.rst
https://gitlab.com/knurd42/linux/-/raw/reporting-bugs/Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs-v3-wrapped.rst
https://gitlab.com/knurd42/linux/-/raw/reporting-bugs/Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs-v2-wrapped.rst
https://gitlab.com/knurd42/linux/-/raw/reporting-bugs/Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs-v1-wrapped.rst
The patch series is against docs-next and can also be found on gitlab:git://[email protected]:knurd42/linux.git reporting-bugs-v4
[1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/[email protected]
= Changes =
v3 -> v4
- move CC-BY-4.0 from LICENSES/preferred/ to LICENSES/dual/
- add note to CC-BY-4.0 file explaining why it's best used together with GPL
- add a note to as comment to the header of reporting-issues.rst, pointing out only the unprocessed version of this file is available under CC-BY-4.0.
v2 -> v3
- drop the RFC tag
- add CC-BY-4.0 to LICENSES/preferred/
- instead of adding the new text in small parts while gradually replacing the old text simply dump the whole new text in a new file in one go
- add a note at the top pointing out the text is not completely finished yet, but ready for consumption
- add a few notes to the text pointing to issues that need discussion or work; this until now was done in the patch
- let the automarkup extension handle links to Documentation/whatever instead of using an explicit :ref:
- leave scripts/ver_linux untouched
- a handful of small improvements and fixes in the main text
- add a patch that makes reporting-bugs.rst obsolete
v1 -> v2
- all over: a whole lot of spelling fixes and small improvements. Many thx to suggestions from Randy Dunlap (many thx!).
- use "ref:" to reference MAINTAINERs file
- the licensing advice is now a rst comment near the top
- reshuffle and rewrite some parts to make them more straight forward:
- The short guide (aka TL;DR)" (patch 2)
- Locate kernel area that causes the issue (patch 9)
- Install a fresh kernel for testing (patch 15)
= Links =
v3 submission:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[email protected]/
v2 submission:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[email protected]/
v1 submission:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[email protected]/
Current version of reporting-bugs.rst
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.html
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/plain/Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst
Commits to it and its predecessor:
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/REPORTING-BUGS
Thorsten Leemhuis (3):
LICENSES: Add the CC-BY-4.0 license
docs: Add a new text describing how to report bugs
docs: make reporting-bugs.rst obsolete
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst | 4 +- Documentation/admin-guide/bug-bisect.rst | 2 +- Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst | 3 +- Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst | 5 + .../admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst | 1631 +++++++++++++++++ Documentation/admin-guide/security-bugs.rst | 2 +- .../device_drivers/ethernet/3com/vortex.rst | 4 +- Documentation/process/howto.rst | 9 +- LICENSES/dual/CC-BY-4.0 | 410 +++++ 9 files changed, 2058 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-) create mode 100644 Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst create mode 100644 LICENSES/dual/CC-BY-4.0
base-commit: ac7711427014a84ba08353df2b77f115565216d8
Signature · 1 line
2.28.0
Thorsten Leemhuis
maintainerPATCH v4 1/3 LICENSES: Add the CC-BY-4.0 license
Add the full text of the CC-BY-4.0 license to the kernel tree as well as the required tags for reference and tooling.
The license text was copied directly from the following url, but for clarification a 'Creative Commons' was added before 'Attribution 4.0 International' in the first line:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.txt
CC-BY-4.0 is GPLv2 compatible, but when for example used for the kernel's documentation it can easily happen that sphinx during processing combines it with text or code from files using a more restrictive license[1]. This bears pitfalls, hence point that risk out and suggest to only use this license in combination with the GPLv2.
[1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/[email protected]
--- LICENSES/dual/CC-BY-4.0 | 410 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 410 insertions(+) create mode 100644 LICENSES/dual/CC-BY-4.0
LICENSES/dual/CC-BY-4.0 new file +410 -0
@@ -0,0 +1,410 @@ +Valid-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0 +SPDX-URL: https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0 +Usage-Guide: + Do NOT use this license for code, but it's acceptable for content like artwork + or documentation. When using it for the latter, it's best to use it together + with a GPL2 compatible license using "OR", as CC-BY-4.0 texts processed by + the kernel's build system might combine it with content taken from more + restrictive licenses. + To use the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license put + the following SPDX tag/value pair into a comment according to the + placement guidelines in the licensing rules documentation: + SPDX-License-Identifier: CC-BY-4.0 +License-Text: + +Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International + +======================================================================= + +Creative Commons Corporation ("Creative Commons") is not a law firm and +does not provide legal services or legal advice. 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Signature · 1 line
2.28.0
Re: [PATCH v4 1/3] LICENSES: Add the CC-BY-4.0 license
Quoted 16 lines · Thorsten Leemhuis
Add the full text of the CC-BY-4.0 license to the kernel tree as well as the required tags for reference and tooling.
The license text was copied directly from the following url, but for clarification a 'Creative Commons' was added before 'Attribution 4.0 International' in the first line:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.txtCC-BY-4.0 is GPLv2 compatible, but when for example used for the kernel's documentation it can easily happen that sphinx during processing combines it with text or code from files using a more restrictive license[1]. This bears pitfalls, hence point that risk out and suggest to only use this license in combination with the GPLv2.
Quoted 8 lines
Signed-off-by Thorsten Leemhuis <[email protected]>CC Thomas Gleixner <[email protected]>CC Greg Kroah-Hartman <[email protected]>CC Christoph Hellwig <[email protected]>--- LICENSES/dual/CC-BY-4.0 | 410 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 410 insertions(+) create mode 100644 LICENSES/dual/CC-BY-4.0
Jonathan Corbet
maintainerRe: [PATCH v4 1/3] LICENSES: Add the CC-BY-4.0 license
Quoted 26 lines · On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 13:23:43 +0100 Greg Kroah-Hartman…
Quoted 16 lines · Thorsten Leemhuis
Add the full text of the CC-BY-4.0 license to the kernel tree as well as the required tags for reference and tooling.
The license text was copied directly from the following url, but for clarification a 'Creative Commons' was added before 'Attribution 4.0 International' in the first line:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.txtCC-BY-4.0 is GPLv2 compatible, but when for example used for the kernel's documentation it can easily happen that sphinx during processing combines it with text or code from files using a more restrictive license[1]. This bears pitfalls, hence point that risk out and suggest to only use this license in combination with the GPLv2.
Quoted 8 lines
Signed-off-by Thorsten Leemhuis <[email protected]>CC Thomas Gleixner <[email protected]>CC Greg Kroah-Hartman <[email protected]>CC Christoph Hellwig <[email protected]>--- LICENSES/dual/CC-BY-4.0 | 410 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 410 insertions(+) create mode 100644 LICENSES/dual/CC-BY-4.0
Quoted 2 lines
Reviewed-by Greg Kroah-Hartman <[email protected]>
Thanks for that. Unless somebody screams, my intent is to apply these patches in the near future.
jon
Thorsten Leemhuis
maintainerPATCH v4 2/3 docs: Add a new text describing how to report bugs
In reply to Thorsten LeemhuisAdd a mostly finished document describing how to report issues with the Linux kernel to its developers. It is designed to be a lot more straight forward and easier to follow than the current text about this (Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst); at the same time the new text should be more helpful for people unfamiliar with the topic, as it provides a lot more details, too.
The main work on the text is done, but some polishing is still needed. The text also needs to be reviewed by more people and a few issues still might need some discussion. To make these tasks easier, it was decided ([1]) to add this document to the kernel sources in parallel to the existing text; the latter will be removed once this text is considered good enough(tm).
This document is quite long and provides a lot of details, but was carefully crafted to make sure it's can also serve people that are in a hurry. That's mainly achieved by having a TDLR and a step-by-step guide, which should be good enough for quite a lot of people. Everybody that wants or need more explanations can find them in a reference section, which describes all the needed steps in detail.
Thanks to this structure the text can work for kernel developers that just need to look something up, experienced FLOSS contributors that are unfamiliar with the kernel's bug reporting workflow, and users reporting something upstream for the first time. The text is thus a bit like the kernel itself, which works well for embedded machines, a typical desktop PC, cloud servers, and HPC.
The document was written in the hope it will improve the quality of the bug reports, especially those that come from people unfamiliar with how Linux kernel development works. Sadly quite a few reports from this group are currently of poor quality and/or get submitted to the wrong place. Part of the problem is the old reporting-bugs document, as it makes its essence hard to grasp; it's and also inaccurate and slightly outdated in a few spots. Due to this quite a few valid reports are ignored in the end, which is annoying for those that compiled them and bad for the kernel's quality.
The document near the top points out that it's still unfinished, but nevertheless ready for consumption. Those few areas in the text that might need some further discussion contain a note pointing this out. Besides lack of review from core developers there is only one major issue left: the section 'Decode failure message' is known to be
outdated: it's waiting for someone familiar with the topic to write something up or give at least provide some hints and pointers what to write there.
The new document is dual-licensed under GPL-2.0+ or CC-BY-4.0. The latter is way more liberal and makes it attractive to use this text as a base when writing about this topic on websites or in books. This hopefully increases the chances that such texts are accurate and stick to official way of doing things.
[1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/[email protected]
--- Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst | 1 + .../admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst | 1631 +++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 1632 insertions(+) create mode 100644 Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst
Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst +1 -0
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ problems and bugs in particular. .. toctree:: :maxdepth: 1 + reporting-issues reporting-bugs security-bugs bug-hunting
Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst new file +1631 -0
1,631 lines not on this page · raw message
Signature · 1 line
2.28.0
Thorsten Leemhuis
maintainerPATCH v4 3/3 docs: make reporting-bugs.rst obsolete
In reply to Thorsten LeemhuisMake various places which point to Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst point to Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst instead. That document is brand new and as of now is not completely finished. But even at this stage it's a lot more helpful and accurate than reporting-bugs.rst. Hence also add a note to reporting-bugs.rst, telling people they're better off reading reporting-issues.rst instead.
reporting-bugs.rst is scheduled for removal once reporting-issues.rst is considered ready.
--- Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst | 4 ++-- Documentation/admin-guide/bug-bisect.rst | 2 +- Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst | 2 +- Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst | 5 +++++ Documentation/admin-guide/security-bugs.rst | 2 +- .../networking/device_drivers/ethernet/3com/vortex.rst | 4 ++-- Documentation/process/howto.rst | 9 ++++----- 7 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 12 deletions(-)
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst +2 -2
@@ -398,8 +398,8 @@ If something goes wrong If you for some reason cannot do the above (you have a pre-compiled kernel image or similar), telling me as much about your setup as - possible will help. Please read the :ref:`admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst <reportingbugs>` - document for details. + possible will help. Please read + 'Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst' for details. - Alternatively, you can use gdb on a running kernel. (read-only; i.e. you cannot change values or set break points.) To do this, first compile the
Documentation/admin-guide/bug-bisect.rst +1 -1
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ give up. Report as much as you have found to the relevant maintainer. See MAINTAINERS for who that is for the subsystem you have worked on. Before you submit a bug report read -:ref:`Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst <reportingbugs>`. +'Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst'. Devices not appearing =====================
Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst +1 -1
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ problems and bugs in particular. :maxdepth: 1 reporting-issues - reporting-bugs + Reporting bugs (obsolete) <reporting-bugs> security-bugs bug-hunting bug-bisect
Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst +5 -0
@@ -1,5 +1,10 @@ .. _reportingbugs: +.. note:: + + This document is obsolete, and will be replaced by + 'Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst' in the near future. + Reporting bugs ++++++++++++++
Documentation/admin-guide/security-bugs.rst +1 -1
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ understand and fix the security vulnerability. As it is with any bug, the more information provided the easier it will be to diagnose and fix. Please review the procedure outlined in -:doc:`reporting-bugs` if you are unclear about what +'Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst' if you are unclear about what information is helpful. Any exploit code is very helpful and will not be released without consent from the reporter unless it has already been made public.
Documentation/networking/device_drivers/ethernet/3com/vortex.rst +2 -2
@@ -374,8 +374,8 @@ steps you should take: email address will be in the driver source or in the MAINTAINERS file. - The contents of your report will vary a lot depending upon the - problem. If it's a kernel crash then you should refer to the - admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst file. + problem. If it's a kernel crash then you should refer to + 'Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst'. But for most problems it is useful to provide the following:
Documentation/process/howto.rst +4 -5
@@ -348,11 +348,10 @@ tool. For details on how to use the kernel bugzilla, please see: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/page.cgi?id=faq.html -The file :ref:`admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst <reportingbugs>` -in the main kernel source directory has a good -template for how to report a possible kernel bug, and details what kind -of information is needed by the kernel developers to help track down the -problem. +The file 'Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst' in the main kernel +source directory has a good template for how to report a possible kernel bug, +and details what kind of information is needed by the kernel developers to help +track down the problem. Managing bug reports
Signature · 1 line
2.28.0
Jonathan Corbet
maintainerQuoted 2 lines · On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 07:43:47 +0100 Thorsten Leemhuis <[email protected]>…
This series adds a new and mostly finished document describing how to report issues with the Linux kernel to its developers.
OK, I have applied this series. Thanks to Thorsten for doing all of this work and sticking with it, and thanks to the others (especially Randy) who have spent a lot of time reviewing this work.
jon
Thorsten Leemhuis
maintainerAm 08.12.20 um 18:44 schrieb Jonathan Corbet:
Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 2 lines · On Fri, 4 Dec 2020 07:43:47 +0100 Thorsten Leemhuis <[email protected]>…
This series adds a new and mostly finished document describing how to report issues with the Linux kernel to its developers.
OK, I have applied this series.
Great, many thx! When I sent the first rfc I had expected it would take a lot longer to reach this point. But well, there is still a lot to do, just that it will happen in-tree now. Will keep an eye on things and work towards getting the remaining issues resolved.
Side note: Just sent the first (brown paper bag) patch for the text[1], as I messed up in one of the last few changes I did -- and obviously I only noticed this stupid mistake after you merged it. :-/ Sorry for the trouble.
Ciao, Thorsten