linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH RESEND v4] MAINTAINERS: fix lots of alphabetic ordering

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Message-ID: <1500569295.14415.14.camel@perches.com>
Date:   Thu, 20 Jul 2017 09:48:15 -0700
From:   Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>
To:     Michael Ellerman <mpe@...erman.id.au>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH RESEND v4] MAINTAINERS: fix lots of alphabetic ordering

On Thu, 2017-07-20 at 20:54 +1000, Michael Ellerman wrote:
> Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com> writes:
> 
> > On Wed, 2017-07-19 at 21:24 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > > On Wed, Jul 19, 2017 at 6:05 PM, Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com> wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > Just for ease of manipulation and not breaking the script much,
> > > > I'd suggest just having a MAINTAINERS directory and stuffing
> > > > each of the sections into separate files.
> > > > 
> > > > The script would only need to add $ cat MAINTAINERS/* as input.
> > > 
> > > So I don't mind the idea of just making MAINTAINERS a directory, but I
> > > don't think we want to so far as to make one file per entry. That's
> > > what, 1500+ files tiny files or so? Seems a bit excessive.
> > > 
> > > Maybe we can just do the prefix thing and just do 26 files A-Z
> > > instead? Or maybe go by first word (so all the ARM things would go in
> > > one place?)
> > > 
> > > A couple of hundred files sounds fine. A couple of thousand files
> > > sound a bit excessive..
> > 
> > $ ls MAINTAINERS.tmp/ | wc -l
> > 1735
> > 
> > <shrug>
> > 
> > A couple thousand individual maintainers is also excessive.
> > 
> > Most maintainers in MAINTAINERS aren't really much involved.
> > 
> > A-Z is arbitrary and still difficult to find because it's
> > not descriptive as to whatever is actually maintained.
> > 
> > As a concept I think individual files would be better.
> > But maybe grouping by subsystem instead of by letter.
> > 
> > Maybe by mirroring the directory layouts.
> > 
> > <by arch>
> > drivers/net
> > drivers/scsi
> 
> Or what about putting separate MAINTAINERS files in the hierarchy at
> whichever level makes the most sense, ie. not too big and not too small.

Same general concept, but then an expectation would be
relative paths for
filename patterns.

It's still hard to do when subsystem maintainers cross.
drivers/net vs drivers/net/ethernet/ vs drivers/net/wireless.
etc..

> eg.
> 
> arch/x86/MAINTAINERS
> arch/arm64/MAINTAINERS
> arch/powerpc/MAINTAINERS
> ...
> net/MAINTAINERS
> mm/MAINTAINERS
> drivers/net/MAINTAINERS
> drivers/media/MAINTAINERS
> drivers/scsi/MAINTAINERS
> drivers/gpu/drm/MAINTAINERS
> drivers/MAINTAINERS
> 
> That way we might end up with 20-50 (?) files, but most of the conflicts
> would be handled by a sub system maintainer before Linus sees them.