[Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Recruitment (Reviewers, Testers, Maintainers, Hobbyists)

[Guenter Roeck]

On 07/16/2015 08:57 AM, Olof Johansson wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 8:41 AM, Jonathan Corbet <corbet at lwn.net> wrote:
>> On Thu, 16 Jul 2015 08:04:30 -0700
>> Tim Bird <tim.bird at sonymobile.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 07/16/2015 06:47 AM, Steven Rostedt wrote:
>>>> One of the issues with newcomers coming to development of the Linux
>>>> kernel, is that every maintainer is different. We should be trying
>>>> harder to let people know what we prefer. Every maintainer expects
>>>> something different, but it's up to the maintainer to explicitly let
>>>> others know what they want. You can't expect everyone to read your mind.
>>>
>>> I agree with this completely.  When you switch systems (which I've done
>>> something like 5 times in the last 2 years), you are essentially a newbie
>>> in that new system.
>>>
>>> How about putting some notes in the MAINTAINER file for things like
>>> this, that some get_maintainer.pl option could show?
>>> We could use a I: prefix, for "Instructions:"  (only because 'N:'
>>> is already used.)
>>
>> So somebody has to play the devil's advocate and ask this question...
>> Are we really better off documenting the fact that what looks like a
>> single project is actually a collection of a hundred or so idiosyncratic
>> fiefdoms with their own contact protocols, coding styles, beer
>> preferences, and more? Or perhaps we might think about gravitating toward
>> a more uniform set of conventions?  Preferably the ones I use? :)
>>
>> Seriously, this area is a minefield for new developers; it can be
>> discouraging to put together your first patch, carefully follow
>> everything found in SubmittingPatches, CodingStyle, SubmitChecklist, and
>> HOWTO, appease the checkpatch.pl beast, carefully run get_maintainer.pl
>> with the correct command-line options, and follow all the suggestions
>> provided by reddit, Phoronix and 4chan, only to be told that the patch
>> came in during the wrong phase of the moon and they really should have
>> known better.
>>
>> Not sure what the real answer is, but something tells me that adding a
>> new domain-specific language to MAINTAINERS isn't quite it :)
>
> Hmm. How about something such as an initial (friendly) gatekeeper that
> fronts the submissions and helps steer them in the right direction and
> in the right format (with follow-up) for those who are unsure?
>
> I'm not sure it'll be possible to achieve at the scale it's needed,
> but it could be worth a try. Or, just as with some other suggestions,
> maybe it has already been tried and didn't go anywhere.
>
That only works is a newbie only submits patches into a single subsystem.
Anyone (including 'oldtimers') submitting a patch into different
subsystems will still hit the minefield, or would have to utilize the
gatekeeper again.

Overall, I don't think this would scale if the gatekeeper is a human.
Besides, that gatekeeper would have to be a genius to remember the
different per-subsystem submit procedures.

Guenter