linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v5] checkpatch: add fix and improve warning msg for Non-standard signature

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Date:   Tue, 01 Dec 2020 10:39:24 -0800
From:   Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>
To:     Lukas Bulwahn <lukas.bulwahn@...il.com>
Cc:     Aditya Srivastava <yashsri421@...il.com>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        linux-kernel-mentees@...ts.linuxfoundation.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5] checkpatch: add fix and improve warning msg for
 Non-standard signature

On Tue, 2020-12-01 at 19:21 +0100, Lukas Bulwahn wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 1, 2020 at 6:24 PM Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com> wrote:
> > 
> > On Tue, 2020-12-01 at 16:59 +0530, Aditya Srivastava wrote:
> > > Currently, checkpatch.pl warns for BAD_SIGN_OFF on non-standard signature
> > > styles.
> > > 
> > > This warning occurs because of incorrect use of signature tags,
> > > e.g. an evaluation on v4.13..v5.8 showed the use of following incorrect
> > > signature tags, which may seem correct, but are not standard:
> > 
> > I'm not a fan of this patch.
> > 
> > There is already a "non-standard" signature warning for
> > all of these cases since 2012, predating the range of this
> > retrospective evaluation by over 5 years and yet these
> > existing commits have been accepted.
> > 
> > The value in actual standardization and effectively
> > requiring specific signature style tags is quite low.
> > 
> > Anyone that signed a thing a particular way should be free
> > to sign the thing as they choose.
> > 
> > Most of these warnings would also still be in the tree in
> > the future in new patches as running checkpatch without
> > it emitting a message of any type isn't a requirement nor
> > should checkpatch use actually be required workflow.
> > 
> 
> Can we scale this fixing feature down to the very obvious synonyms
> that simply do not add anything but confusion?
> 
> Such as for those four here:
> 
> Co-authored-by (count: 43) => Co-developed-by

I've never been a big fan of "Co-developed-by" as a signature tag,
but a "this should be that" here could be ok.

> Reviewed-off-by (count: 5) => Reviewed-by

I don't see value.  If no one notices a BAD_SIGN_OFF
for the Reviewed-off-by:, I doubt this would add anything.

> Proposed-by (count: 5) => Suggested-by
> Suggestions-by (count: 3) => Suggested-by

Suggestions-by is not suggested-by as these suggestions could
have been in response to an initial patch proposal and the
author could have incorporated those suggestions.

> Then, we can probably also drop the rationale because it is pretty clear.
> 
> Of course, the impact might be really zero, given that it is unclear
> if those authors did actually ever run checkpatch in the first place.
> 
> Joe, if you see no value in even such a minimal fix feature, let us
> drop that idea and move on. There are enough other things to work on.

Maybe only add the Co-authored-by: -> Co-developed-by: check.

But IMO: none of this is particularly useful.