Make Helped-by tag supported
Subsystems (3)
v2 cover Make Helped-by tag supported
This is a short series that adds Helped-by tag to the list of accepted tags in scripts/checkpatch.pl, and describes the intended use of this new tag in Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst.
The proposed Helped-by tag fits well to indicate someone had helped with the development of a patch, to the level that doesn't warrant providing a Co-developed-by tag, but is much more than it would've been indicated by providing a Suggested-by tag.
Changes in v2:
- Changed into a small patch series
- Added a patch that describes the intended use of proposed Helped-by tag to Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst, to hopefully help with accepting this new tag, and to make its intended use more clear, as suggested by Chen-Yu [1]
- Added a patch that reflows a bit one short paragraph in the same documentation file mentioned above
Dragan Simic (3):
checkpatch: Make Helped-by tag supported
docs: submitting-patches: Reflow one short paragraph
docs: submitting-patches: Describe the use of Helped-by tag
Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst | 17 ++++++++++++----- scripts/checkpatch.pl | 1 + 2 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
PATCH v2 1/3 checkpatch: Make Helped-by tag supported
Providing a Helped-by tag fits well to indicate someone had helped with the development of a patch, to the level that still doesn't warrant providing a Co-developed-by tag, but is much more than it would've been indicated by providing a Suggested-by tag. The Helped-by tag been already used recently a few times in accepted patches. [1]
With all this in mind, let's have Helped-by supported in checkpatch.pl.
[1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/?qt=grep&q=Helped-by
--- scripts/checkpatch.pl | 1 + 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
scripts/checkpatch.pl +1 -0
@@ -622,6 +622,7 @@ our $signature_tags = qr{(?xi: Reviewed-by:| Reported-by:| Suggested-by:| + Helped-by:| To:| Cc: )};
PATCH v2 2/3 docs: submitting-patches: Reflow one short paragraph
In reply to Dragan SimicReflow one spotted short paragraph, to make it more consistent with the rest of the file. No functional changes are introduced.
--- Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst | 5 ++--- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst +2 -3
@@ -202,9 +202,8 @@ Style-check your changes ------------------------ Check your patch for basic style violations, details of which can be -found in Documentation/process/coding-style.rst. -Failure to do so simply wastes -the reviewers time and will get your patch rejected, probably +found in Documentation/process/coding-style.rst. Failure to do so simply +wastes the reviewers time and will get your patch rejected, probably without even being read. One significant exception is when moving code from one file to
PATCH v2 3/3 docs: submitting-patches: Describe the use of Helped-by tag
In reply to Dragan SimicAdd the description of the intended use of Helped-by tags, which give credit to the persons who assisted the patch authors in a way that didn't actually contribute to the patch directly, i.e. at the source-code level.
--- Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst | 12 ++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst +10 -2
@@ -452,8 +452,8 @@ as it was propagated to the maintainers and ultimately to Linus, with the first SoB entry signalling primary authorship of a single author. -When to use Acked-by:, Cc:, and Co-developed-by: ------------------------------------------------- +When to use Acked-by:, Cc:, Co-developed-by:, and Helped-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.
@@ -495,6 +495,14 @@ chronological history of the patch insofar as possible, regardless of whether the author is attributed via From: or Co-developed-by:. Notably, the last Signed-off-by: must always be that of the developer submitting the patch. +Helped-by: gives attribution to the persons that helped the patch authors +in a way that didn't directly produce the patch itself. For example, someone +may provide significant assistance to the authors by researching the schematic +of a device that the patch addresses, or by providing the patch authors with +some background information required to develop the patch, while contributing +no actual source code. As a result of no direct patch authorship, no +Signed-off-by: tags are needed together with Helped-by: tags. + Note, the From: tag is optional when the From: author is also the person (and email) listed in the From: line of the email header.
Re: [PATCH v2 3/3] docs: submitting-patches: Describe the use of Helped-by tag
Hello,
Quoted 20 lines · Dragan Simic
Add the description of the intended use of Helped-by tags, which give credit to the persons who assisted the patch authors in a way that didn't actually contribute to the patch directly, i.e. at the source-code level.
Suggested-by Chen-Yu Tsai <[email protected]>Signed-off-by Dragan Simic <[email protected]>--- Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst | 12 ++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst +0
-0@@ -452,8 +452,8 @@ as it was propagated to the maintainers andultimately to Linus, with
the first SoB entry signalling primary authorship of a single author.
Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst as it was propagated to the maintainers and ultimately to Linus, with · line 456
Quoted 4 lines
Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst +2
-2-When to use Acked-by:, Cc:, and Co-developed-by: ------------------------------------------------- +When to use Acked-by:, Cc:, Co-developed-by:, and Helped-by +-----------------------------------------------------------
Oh, now I see that I've missed a colon after Helped-by in the section title above. :/ Would you like me to send a v3 with the fix, or do you prefer to fix it by hand before applying the patch?
Quoted 26 lines
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.Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst +0
-0@@ -495,6 +495,14 @@ chronological history of the patch insofar aspossible, regardless of whether
the author is attributed via From: or Co-developed-by:. Notably, the
last
Signed-off-by: must always be that of the developer submitting the
patch.+Helped-by: gives attribution to the persons that helped the patch authors
+in a way that didn't directly produce the patch itself. For example, someone
+may provide significant assistance to the authors by researching the schematic
+of a device that the patch addresses, or by providing the patch authors with
+some background information required to develop the patch, while contributingDocumentation/process/submitting-patches.rst +3
-0+no actual source code. As a result of no direct patch authorship, no +Signed-off-by: tags are needed together with Helped-by: tags. + Note, the From: tag is optional when the From: author is also theperson (and
email) listed in the From: line of the email header.
Jonathan Corbet
maintainerQuoted 8 lines · Dragan Simic
This is a short series that adds Helped-by tag to the list of accepted tags in
scripts/checkpatch.pl, and describes the intended use of this new tag inDocumentation/process/submitting-patches.rst.The proposed Helped-by tag fits well to indicate someone had helped with the development of a patch, to the level that doesn't warrant providing a Co-developed-by tag, but is much more than it would've been indicated by providing a Suggested-by tag.
The documentation is meant to cover our existing conventions, rather than to drive new ones - usually, at least. There are exactly 11 commits in the history with Helped-by, suggesting we're not really at an established convention at this point. Given that there has been some resistance to inventing new tags, are we sure that we want this one?
Thanks,
jon
Hello Jonathan,
Quoted 11 lines · Jonathan Corbet
Quoted 8 lines · Dragan Simic
This is a short series that adds Helped-by tag to the list of accepted tags in
scripts/checkpatch.pl, and describes the intended use of this new tag inDocumentation/process/submitting-patches.rst.The proposed Helped-by tag fits well to indicate someone had helped with the development of a patch, to the level that doesn't warrant providing a Co-developed-by tag, but is much more than it would've been indicated by providing a Suggested-by tag.
Quoted 5 lines
The documentation is meant to cover our existing conventions, rather than to drive new ones - usually, at least. There are exactly 11 commits in the history with Helped-by, suggesting we're not really at an established convention at this point. Given that there has been some resistance to inventing new tags, are we sure that we want this one?
Thanks for your response.
Of course, the documentation would be updated only if the first patch in this series becomes accepted, i.e. if Helped-by becomes supported in checkpatch.pl. I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough.
It's usually said that necessity is mother of invention, which is the case here. In a few words, I've got another patch pending merging [1] that a couple of people helped me with. What they did is more than what Suggested-by tags would indicate, but doesn't really warrant Co-developed-by + Signed-off-by pairs or tags. Having Helped-by tags provided for both of them would fit pretty much perfectly.
It was very similar, if not the same, when it comes to the development that led to a few commits already containing Helped-by tags. [2] Sure, that isn't a whole lot of such commits, but this may be a good point to decide what to do with Helped-by tags in the future.
I'm fully aware that we may be reluctant to supporting additional tags, because we may then end up with a whole bunch of strange tags that might be a bit hard to understand and use properly, but I think that adding Helped-by to the supported tag list may actually be a good thing to do. As described above, Helped-by fits very well between the Suggested-by tag and the Co-developed-by + Signed-off-by pair of tags, and I think that providing the right level of attribution may be beneficial.
[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-sunxi/129f0c754d071cca1db5d207d9d4a7bd9831dff7.1726773282.git.dsimic@manjaro.org/T/#u
[2] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/?qt=grep&q=Helped-by
Dragan Simic wrote:
[..]
Quoted 7 lines
I'm fully aware that we may be reluctant to supporting additional tags, because we may then end up with a whole bunch of strange tags that might be a bit hard to understand and use properly, but I think that adding Helped-by to the supported tag list may actually be a good thing to do. As described above, Helped-by fits very well between the Suggested-by tag and the Co-developed-by + Signed-off-by pair of tags, and I think that providing the right level of attribution may be beneficial.
Patch attribution is separate from giving thanks. I would much rather someone take the time to say "Thanks" in the changelog with some supporting text rather than boil down all the myriad ways to be thankful into a generic tag. "git log --grep=Thanks" often yields valuable details, beyond just attribution, on how people have helped each other develop this global project of ours. If the introduction of Helped-by would replace even one authentic "Thank you" note with a generic tag then it is a net loss for the community.
Hello Dan,
Quoted 9 lines · Dan Williams
Quoted 7 lines · Dragan Simic
I'm fully aware that we may be reluctant to supporting additional tags, because we may then end up with a whole bunch of strange tags that might be a bit hard to understand and use properly, but I think that adding Helped-by to the supported tag list may actually be a good thing to do. As described above, Helped-by fits very well between the Suggested-by tag and the Co-developed-by + Signed-off-by pair of tags, and I think that providing the right level of attribution may be beneficial.
Quoted 8 lines
Patch attribution is separate from giving thanks. I would much rather someone take the time to say "Thanks" in the changelog with some supporting text rather than boil down all the myriad ways to be thankful into a generic tag. "git log --grep=Thanks" often yields valuable details, beyond just attribution, on how people have helped each other develop this global project of ours. If the introduction of Helped-by would replace even one authentic "Thank you" note with a generic tag then it is a net loss for the community.
I do agree that writing "Thanks John for helping with..." in a patch description would be nice, but unfortunately I've seen multiple times that people don't enjoy writing their patch descriptions at all, and just want to "get them out the door" as quickly as possible.
With that in mind, making Helped-by tags supported would allow such people to at least quickly mention someone they're thankful to, which actually wouldn't prevent anyone from saying the same more verbosely in a patch description.
Quoted 24 lines · Dragan Simic
Quoted 9 lines · Dan Williams
Quoted 7 lines · Dragan Simic
I'm fully aware that we may be reluctant to supporting additional tags, because we may then end up with a whole bunch of strange tags that might be a bit hard to understand and use properly, but I think that adding Helped-by to the supported tag list may actually be a good thing to do. As described above, Helped-by fits very well between the Suggested-by tag and the Co-developed-by + Signed-off-by pair of tags, and I think that providing the right level of attribution may be beneficial.
Quoted 8 lines
Patch attribution is separate from giving thanks. I would much rather someone take the time to say "Thanks" in the changelog with some supporting text rather than boil down all the myriad ways to be thankful into a generic tag. "git log --grep=Thanks" often yields valuable details, beyond just attribution, on how people have helped each other develop this global project of ours. If the introduction of Helped-by would replace even one authentic "Thank you" note with a generic tag then it is a net loss for the community.
I do agree that writing "Thanks John for helping with..." in a patch description would be nice, but unfortunately I've seen multiple times that people don't enjoy writing their patch descriptions at all, and just want to "get them out the door" as quickly as possible.
Quoted 4 lines
With that in mind, making Helped-by tags supported would allow such people to at least quickly mention someone they're thankful to, which actually wouldn't prevent anyone from saying the same more verbosely in a patch description.
Just checking, are there any further thoughts on this patch?
Quoted 29 lines · Dragan Simic
Quoted 28 lines · Dragan Simic
Quoted 12 lines · Dan Williams
Quoted 10 lines · Dragan Simic
I'm fully aware that we may be reluctant to supporting additional tags,
because we may then end up with a whole bunch of strange tags that might
be a bit hard to understand and use properly, but I think that adding Helped-by to the supported tag list may actually be a good thing to do.
As described above, Helped-by fits very well between the Suggested-by tag and the Co-developed-by + Signed-off-by pair of tags, and I think that providing the right level of attribution may be beneficial.Quoted 9 lines
Patch attribution is separate from giving thanks. I would much rather someone take the time to say "Thanks" in the changelog with some supporting text rather than boil down all the myriad ways to be thankful
into a generic tag. "git log --grep=Thanks" often yields valuable details, beyond just attribution, on how people have helped each other develop this global project of ours. If the introduction of Helped-by would replace even one authentic "Thank you" note with a generic tag then it is a net loss for the community.I do agree that writing "Thanks John for helping with..." in a patch description would be nice, but unfortunately I've seen multiple times that people don't enjoy writing their patch descriptions at all, and just want to "get them out the door" as quickly as possible.
Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 4 lines
With that in mind, making Helped-by tags supported would allow such people to at least quickly mention someone they're thankful to, which actually wouldn't prevent anyone from saying the same more verbosely in a patch description.
Just checking, are there any further thoughts on this patch?
I agree with Dan & Jon; we don't need this tag. And if someone's doing a poor job of writing commit messages, they need to be helped to write better ones.
Shuah Khan
reviewerQuoted 35 lines · Matthew Wilcox
Quoted 34 lines · Dragan Simic
Quoted 32 lines · Dragan Simic
Quoted 12 lines · Dan Williams
Quoted 10 lines · Dragan Simic
I'm fully aware that we may be reluctant to supporting additional tags,
because we may then end up with a whole bunch of strange tags that might
be a bit hard to understand and use properly, but I think that adding Helped-by to the supported tag list may actually be a good thing to do.
As described above, Helped-by fits very well between the Suggested-by tag and the Co-developed-by + Signed-off-by pair of tags, and I think that providing the right level of attribution may be beneficial.Quoted 9 lines
Patch attribution is separate from giving thanks. I would much rather someone take the time to say "Thanks" in the changelog with some supporting text rather than boil down all the myriad ways to be thankful
into a generic tag. "git log --grep=Thanks" often yields valuable details, beyond just attribution, on how people have helped each other develop this global project of ours. If the introduction of Helped-by would replace even one authentic "Thank you" note with a generic tag then it is a net loss for the community.I do agree that writing "Thanks John for helping with..." in a patch description would be nice, but unfortunately I've seen multiple times that people don't enjoy writing their patch descriptions at all, and just want to "get them out the door" as quickly as possible.
With that in mind, making Helped-by tags supported would allow such people to at least quickly mention someone they're thankful to, which actually wouldn't prevent anyone from saying the same more verbosely in a patch description.
Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 1 line
Just checking, are there any further thoughts on this patch?
I agree with Dan & Jon; we don't need this tag. And if someone's doing a poor job of writing commit messages, they need to be helped to write better ones.
+1 on this. I don't think we need yet another tag.
thanks,
-- Shuah