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Jonathan Corbet75b02142008-09-30 15:15:56 -060016: FOLLOWTHROUGH
2
3At this point, you have followed the guidelines given so far and, with the
4addition of your own engineering skills, have posted a perfect series of
5patches. One of the biggest mistakes that even experienced kernel
6developers can make is to conclude that their work is now done. In truth,
7posting patches indicates a transition into the next stage of the process,
8with, possibly, quite a bit of work yet to be done.
9
10It is a rare patch which is so good at its first posting that there is no
11room for improvement. The kernel development process recognizes this fact,
12and, as a result, is heavily oriented toward the improvement of posted
13code. You, as the author of that code, will be expected to work with the
14kernel community to ensure that your code is up to the kernel's quality
15standards. A failure to participate in this process is quite likely to
16prevent the inclusion of your patches into the mainline.
17
18
196.1: WORKING WITH REVIEWERS
20
21A patch of any significance will result in a number of comments from other
22developers as they review the code. Working with reviewers can be, for
23many developers, the most intimidating part of the kernel development
24process. Life can be made much easier, though, if you keep a few things in
25mind:
26
27 - If you have explained your patch well, reviewers will understand its
28 value and why you went to the trouble of writing it. But that value
29 will not keep them from asking a fundamental question: what will it be
30 like to maintain a kernel with this code in it five or ten years later?
31 Many of the changes you may be asked to make - from coding style tweaks
32 to substantial rewrites - come from the understanding that Linux will
33 still be around and under development a decade from now.
34
35 - Code review is hard work, and it is a relatively thankless occupation;
36 people remember who wrote kernel code, but there is little lasting fame
37 for those who reviewed it. So reviewers can get grumpy, especially when
38 they see the same mistakes being made over and over again. If you get a
39 review which seems angry, insulting, or outright offensive, resist the
40 impulse to respond in kind. Code review is about the code, not about
41 the people, and code reviewers are not attacking you personally.
42
43 - Similarly, code reviewers are not trying to promote their employers'
44 agendas at the expense of your own. Kernel developers often expect to
45 be working on the kernel years from now, but they understand that their
46 employer could change. They truly are, almost without exception,
47 working toward the creation of the best kernel they can; they are not
48 trying to create discomfort for their employers' competitors.
49
50What all of this comes down to is that, when reviewers send you comments,
51you need to pay attention to the technical observations that they are
52making. Do not let their form of expression or your own pride keep that
53from happening. When you get review comments on a patch, take the time to
54understand what the reviewer is trying to say. If possible, fix the things
55that the reviewer is asking you to fix. And respond back to the reviewer:
56thank them, and describe how you will answer their questions.
57
58Note that you do not have to agree with every change suggested by
59reviewers. If you believe that the reviewer has misunderstood your code,
60explain what is really going on. If you have a technical objection to a
61suggested change, describe it and justify your solution to the problem. If
62your explanations make sense, the reviewer will accept them. Should your
63explanation not prove persuasive, though, especially if others start to
64agree with the reviewer, take some time to think things over again. It can
65be easy to become blinded by your own solution to a problem to the point
66that you don't realize that something is fundamentally wrong or, perhaps,
67you're not even solving the right problem.
68
69One fatal mistake is to ignore review comments in the hope that they will
70go away. They will not go away. If you repost code without having
71responded to the comments you got the time before, you're likely to find
72that your patches go nowhere.
73
74Speaking of reposting code: please bear in mind that reviewers are not
75going to remember all the details of the code you posted the last time
76around. So it is always a good idea to remind reviewers of previously
77raised issues and how you dealt with them; the patch changelog is a good
78place for this kind of information. Reviewers should not have to search
79through list archives to familiarize themselves with what was said last
80time; if you help them get a running start, they will be in a better mood
81when they revisit your code.
82
83What if you've tried to do everything right and things still aren't going
84anywhere? Most technical disagreements can be resolved through discussion,
85but there are times when somebody simply has to make a decision. If you
86honestly believe that this decision is going against you wrongly, you can
87always try appealing to a higher power. As of this writing, that higher
88power tends to be Andrew Morton. Andrew has a great deal of respect in the
89kernel development community; he can often unjam a situation which seems to
90be hopelessly blocked. Appealing to Andrew should not be done lightly,
91though, and not before all other alternatives have been explored. And bear
92in mind, of course, that he may not agree with you either.
93
94
956.2: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
96
97If a patch is considered to be a good thing to add to the kernel, and once
98most of the review issues have been resolved, the next step is usually
99entry into a subsystem maintainer's tree. How that works varies from one
100subsystem to the next; each maintainer has his or her own way of doing
101things. In particular, there may be more than one tree - one, perhaps,
102dedicated to patches planned for the next merge window, and another for
103longer-term work.
104
105For patches applying to areas for which there is no obvious subsystem tree
106(memory management patches, for example), the default tree often ends up
107being -mm. Patches which affect multiple subsystems can also end up going
108through the -mm tree.
109
110Inclusion into a subsystem tree can bring a higher level of visibility to a
111patch. Now other developers working with that tree will get the patch by
112default. Subsystem trees typically feed into -mm and linux-next as well,
113making their contents visible to the development community as a whole. At
114this point, there's a good chance that you will get more comments from a
115new set of reviewers; these comments need to be answered as in the previous
116round.
117
118What may also happen at this point, depending on the nature of your patch,
119is that conflicts with work being done by others turn up. In the worst
120case, heavy patch conflicts can result in some work being put on the back
121burner so that the remaining patches can be worked into shape and merged.
122Other times, conflict resolution will involve working with the other
123developers and, possibly, moving some patches between trees to ensure that
124everything applies cleanly. This work can be a pain, but count your
125blessings: before the advent of the linux-next tree, these conflicts often
126only turned up during the merge window and had to be addressed in a hurry.
127Now they can be resolved at leisure, before the merge window opens.
128
129Some day, if all goes well, you'll log on and see that your patch has been
130merged into the mainline kernel. Congratulations! Once the celebration is
131complete (and you have added yourself to the MAINTAINERS file), though, it
132is worth remembering an important little fact: the job still is not done.
133Merging into the mainline brings its own challenges.
134
135To begin with, the visibility of your patch has increased yet again. There
136may be a new round of comments from developers who had not been aware of
137the patch before. It may be tempting to ignore them, since there is no
138longer any question of your code being merged. Resist that temptation,
139though; you still need to be responsive to developers who have questions or
140suggestions.
141
142More importantly, though: inclusion into the mainline puts your code into
143the hands of a much larger group of testers. Even if you have contributed
144a driver for hardware which is not yet available, you will be surprised by
145how many people will build your code into their kernels. And, of course,
146where there are testers, there will be bug reports.
147
148The worst sort of bug reports are regressions. If your patch causes a
149regression, you'll find an uncomfortable number of eyes upon you;
150regressions need to be fixed as soon as possible. If you are unwilling or
151unable to fix the regression (and nobody else does it for you), your patch
152will almost certainly be removed during the stabilization period. Beyond
153negating all of the work you have done to get your patch into the mainline,
154having a patch pulled as the result of a failure to fix a regression could
155well make it harder for you to get work merged in the future.
156
157After any regressions have been dealt with, there may be other, ordinary
158bugs to deal with. The stabilization period is your best opportunity to
159fix these bugs and ensure that your code's debut in a mainline kernel
160release is as solid as possible. So, please, answer bug reports, and fix
161the problems if at all possible. That's what the stabilization period is
162for; you can start creating cool new patches once any problems with the old
163ones have been taken care of.
164
165And don't forget that there are other milestones which may also create bug
166reports: the next mainline stable release, when prominent distributors pick
167up a version of the kernel containing your patch, etc. Continuing to
168respond to these reports is a matter of basic pride in your work. If that
169is insufficient motivation, though, it's also worth considering that the
170development community remembers developers who lose interest in their code
171after it's merged. The next time you post a patch, they will be evaluating
172it with the assumption that you will not be around to maintain it
173afterward.
174
175
1766.3: OTHER THINGS THAT CAN HAPPEN
177
178One day, you may open your mail client and see that somebody has mailed you
179a patch to your code. That is one of the advantages of having your code
180out there in the open, after all. If you agree with the patch, you can
181either forward it on to the subsystem maintainer (be sure to include a
182proper From: line so that the attribution is correct, and add a signoff of
183your own), or send an Acked-by: response back and let the original poster
184send it upward.
185
186If you disagree with the patch, send a polite response explaining why. If
187possible, tell the author what changes need to be made to make the patch
188acceptable to you. There is a certain resistance to merging patches which
189are opposed by the author and maintainer of the code, but it only goes so
190far. If you are seen as needlessly blocking good work, those patches will
191eventually flow around you and get into the mainline anyway. In the Linux
192kernel, nobody has absolute veto power over any code. Except maybe Linus.
193
194On very rare occasion, you may see something completely different: another
195developer posts a different solution to your problem. At that point,
196chances are that one of the two patches will not be merged, and "mine was
197here first" is not considered to be a compelling technical argument. If
198somebody else's patch displaces yours and gets into the mainline, there is
199really only one way to respond: be pleased that your problem got solved and
200get on with your work. Having one's work shoved aside in this manner can
201be hurtful and discouraging, but the community will remember your reaction
202long after they have forgotten whose patch actually got merged.