linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] How to (automatically) find the correct maintainer(s)

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Date:	Mon, 15 Jan 2007 21:21:15 +0100
From:	Richard Knutsson <ricknu-0@...dent.ltu.se>
To:	Matthias Schniedermeyer <ms@...d.de>
CC:	Stefan Richter <stefanr@...6.in-berlin.de>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] How to (automatically) find the correct maintainer(s)

Matthias Schniedermeyer wrote:
> Richard Knutsson wrote:
>   
>> Stefan Richter wrote:
>>
>>     
>>> On 15 Jan, Matthias Schniedermeyer wrote:
>>>  
>>>
>>>       
>>>> Stefan Richter wrote:
>>>>    
>>>>
>>>>         
>>>>> On 14 Jan, Richard Knutsson wrote:
>>>>>      
>>>>>
>>>>>           
>>>>>> (Really liked the idea to have a "Maintainer"-button next to "Help"
>>>>>> in *config)
>>>>>>         
>>>>>>             
>>>>> Rhetorical question: What will this button be used for?
>>>>>       
>>>>>           
>>>> Having "all(tm)" information of something in one place?
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> Or, "click here to say 'it does not work'"?
>>>
>>> My rhetorical question wasn't about what it is intended for, but what
>>> people would think it was intended for if it was there.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> I think it could be practical to have an easy access to whom is
>> responsible for a driver and which mailinglist its development is
>> addressed to, both for people interested in helping develop the driver
>> and those who got an error (or fan-mail :).
>>
>>     
>>>> I think adding the Maintainers-data is more or less a logical next step.
>>>>
>>>> It's not always clear from the MAINTAINERS-file who is the right person
>>>> for what. Especially as it is a rather large text-file with only
>>>> mediocre search-friendlieness. It's a 3.5 K-lines file!
>>>>
>>>> So when you know that you have a problem with drivers X, wouldn't it be
>>>> great if you could just "go to" the driver in *config and see not only
>>>> the Help-Text but the Maintainers-Data also.
>>>>     
>>>>         
>>> Seems more like what you actually want to have there is links to users'
>>> mailinglists or forums.
>>>
>>> When this thread started, it was about assisting authors in submitting
>>> patches.
>>>
>>>   
>>>       
>> Yes, this is a bit out of scope, but just realized a simple way to
>> implement it if using the CONFIG_FLAG-approach, just "grep" after the
>> flag, under which the user hit the "Maintainer"-button, in the
>> MAINTAINER-file. Also, I think this solves the handler-problem since an
>> entry can have multiple CONFIG_FLAG's stated.
>>
>> I don't think we should add the maintainer-entries directly in Kconfig,
>> as you Stefan stated, because it is for configure the kernel. With the
>> above approach, it will just require minor fixes in the "make *config"
>> to handle it.
>>     
>
> But how do you suppose the user gets the CONFIG_-String, which the user
> then could for searching?
>
> I'd say only a small percentage of hardcore-users would use the
> .config-file directly, the others would deviate over *config, so i'd say
> if the MAINTAINERS-data is integrated into Kconfig it's the perfect(tm)
> 90% solution.
>
> OTOH you could just teach the *config to lookup a MAINTAINERS-entry when
> all they are properly flagged.
>   
Oh no, did'n mean like that. All entries in the Kconfig has a "config 
CONFIG_FLAG" (of course ;) ) and so *config "knows" which flag to search 
for (if added to MAINTAINERS, that is).

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