linux-kernel - Re: [Ksummit-discuss] crediting bug reports and fixes folded into original patch

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Message-ID: <CAPcyv4jDHMt4PpR2Htvw27rn5i5sCkwXtoZH-rFbtG8Hj7x1sg@mail.gmail.com>
Date:   Wed, 2 Dec 2020 20:02:27 -0800
From:   Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>
To:     Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>
Cc:     "ksummit-discuss@...ts.linuxfoundation.org" 
        <ksummit-discuss@...ts.linuxfoundation.org>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] crediting bug reports and fixes folded into
 original patch

On Wed, Dec 2, 2020 at 3:44 PM Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> there was a bit of debate on Twitter about this, so I thought I would bring it
> here. Imagine a scenario where patch sits as a commit in -next and there's a bug
> report or fix, possibly by a bot or with some static analysis. The maintainer
> decides to fold it into the original patch, which makes sense for e.g.
> bisectability. But there seem to be no clear rules about attribution in this
> case, which looks like there should be, probably in
> Documentation/maintainer/modifying-patches.rst
>
> The original bug fix might include a From: $author, a Reported-by: (e.g.
> syzbot), Fixes: $next-commit, some tag such as Addresses-Coverity: to credit the
> static analysis tool, and an SoB. After folding, all that's left might be a line
> as "include fix from $author" in the SoB area. This is a loss of
> metadata/attribution just due to folding, and might make contributors unhappy.
> Had they sent the fix after the original commit was mainline and immutable, all
> the info above would "survive" in the form of new commit.
>
> So I think we could decide what the proper format would be, and document it
> properly. I personally wouldn't mind just copy/pasting the whole commit message
> of the fix (with just a short issue description, no need to include stacktraces
> etc if the fix is folded), we could just standardize where, and how to delimit
> it from the main commit message. If it's a report (person or bot) of a bug that
> the main author then fixed, preserve the Reported-by in the same way (making
> clear it's not a Reported-By for the "main thing" addressed by the commit).
>
> In the debate one less verbose alternatve proposed was a SoB with comment
> describing it's for a fix and not whole patch, as some see SoB as the main mark
> of contribution, that can be easily found and counted etc. I'm not so sure about
> it myself, as AFAIK SoB is mainly a DCO thing, and for a maintainer it means
> something else ("passed through my tree") than for a patch author. And this
> approach would still lose the other tags.
>
> Thoughts?

How about a convention to add a Reported-by: and a Link: to the
incremental fixup discussion? It's just polite to credit helpful
feedback, not sure it needs a more formal process.

Along those lines, how is this situation different than the feedback
that helps improve a patch that does not necessarily get credited by
Reviewed-by:? Links to thank you notes in cover letters seems more
appealing than moving more review / fix logs into the main history.