linux-kernel - Re: about the flood of trivial patches and the Code of Conduct (was: Re: [PATCH 19/25] sched: Use bool function return values of true/false not 1/0)

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Message-ID: <3681763.iLyH4xMfmO@vostro.rjw.lan>
Date:	Thu, 09 Apr 2015 01:37:26 +0200
From:	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@...ysocki.net>
To:	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>
Cc:	Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
	Richard Weinberger <richard.weinberger@...il.com>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...nel.org>, Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Ingo Molnar <mingo@...hat.com>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>
Subject: Re: about the flood of trivial patches and the Code of Conduct (was: Re: [PATCH 19/25] sched: Use bool function return values of true/false not 1/0)

On Tuesday, April 07, 2015 09:28:03 AM Steven Rostedt wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 07, 2015 at 02:31:23PM +0200, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > 
> > > As per the other branch of this tree; an emphatic NO to that. The
> > > trivial tree is not a backdoor to bypass maintainers. Actual code
> > > changes do not get to go through any tree but the maintainer tree unless
> > > explicitly ACKed.
> > 
> > Well, practically speaking, that would make changes like the recent
> > clockevents_notify() removal very difficult to carry out.  Also there is
> > some natural cross-talk between certain subsystems.
> 
> I would not call the clockevents_notify() series "trivial". More advanced
> clean ups that are system wide, would be different, because you are changing
> the way the code works. The maintainers must be Cc'd, but sometimes I find
> those changes are very hard to get acks from everyone. But again, the change
> is a non trivial clean up and has other reasons for going in than just to
> make the code look nice.
> 
> > 
> > Different matter is the real value of tree-wide cleanup changes.  If code is
> > old enough it often is better to leave it alone, even though it may be doing
> > things that we don't usually do nowadays.
> 
> Or maybe it's a good time to rewrite that code such that everyone can understand
> it today ;-)
> 
> > 
> > Or things that new patches are not supposed to do, for that matter, so
> > I generally don't like the "checkpatch.pl error fix" changes in the old code.
> >
> 
> I totally agree with that. But for non trivial clean ups, old code should be
> updated too.

Well, there still is some risk of introducing real bugs this way (I *have* seen
"trivial cleanups" that broke things) and is it really worth it?

Besides, old code is somewhat like an ancient building.  Yes, it needs to be
kept in a good shape, but you won't replace bricks in it just because they are
old, will you?

Rafael

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