linux-kernel - Re: wireless-drivers: random cleanup patches piling up

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Date:	Fri, 22 Jan 2016 10:12:12 -0500
From:	"John W. Linville" <linville@...driver.com>
To:	Kalle Valo <kvalo@...eaurora.org>
Cc:	Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>, linux-wireless@...r.kernel.org,
	kbuild test robot <lkp@...el.com>,
	kernel-janitors <kernel-janitors@...r.kernel.org>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: wireless-drivers: random cleanup patches piling up

On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 02:21:20PM +0200, Kalle Valo wrote:
> Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com> writes:
> 
> > On Thu, 2016-01-21 at 16:58 +0200, Kalle Valo wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >> 
> >> I have quite a lot of random cleanup patches from new developers waiting
> >> in my queue:
> >> 
> >> https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-wireless/list/?state=10&delegate=25621&order=date
> >> 
> >> (Not all of them are cleanup patches, there are also few patches
> >> deferred due to other reasons, but you get the idea.)
> >> 
> >> These cleanup patches usually take quite a lot of my time and I'm
> >> starting to doubt the benefit, compared to the time needed to dig
> >> through them and figuring out what to apply. And this is of course time
> >> away from other patches, so it's slowing down "real" development.
> >> 
> >> I really don't know what to do. Part of me is saying that I just should
> >> drop them unless it's reviewed by a more experienced developer but on
> >> the other hand this is a good way get new developers onboard.
> >> 
> >> What others think? Are these kind of patches useful?
> >
> > Some yes, mostly not really.
> >
> > While whitespace style patches have some small value,
> > very few of the new contributors that use tools like
> > "scripts/checkpatch.pl -f" on various kernel files 
> > actually continue on to submit actual defect fixing
> > or optimization or code clarity patches.
> 
> That's also my experience from maintaining wireless-drivers for a year,
> this seems to be a "hit and run" type of phenomenon.

Should we be looking for someone to run a "wireless-driver-cleanups"
tree?  They could handle the cleanups and trivial stuff, and send
you a pull request a couple of times per release...?

John
-- 
John W. Linville		Someday the world will need a hero, and you
linville@...driver.com			might be all we have.  Be ready.