linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] [v3] Documentation: Provide guidelines for tool-generated content

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Message-ID: <b7469e4e-d711-467f-839f-4a9688d25a23@lucifer.local>
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2026 19:28:13 +0000
From: Lorenzo Stoakes <lorenzo.stoakes@...cle.com>
To: Miguel Ojeda <miguel.ojeda.sandonis@...il.com>
Cc: Sasha Levin <sashal@...nel.org>, Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>,
        Dave Hansen <dave@...1.net>, Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...ux.intel.com>,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, Shuah Khan <shuah@...nel.org>,
        Kees Cook <kees@...nel.org>,
        Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Miguel Ojeda <ojeda@...nel.org>, Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@...nel.org>,
        SeongJae Park <sj@...nel.org>, Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>, NeilBrown <neilb@...mail.net>,
        Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>, Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>, workflows@...r.kernel.org,
        ksummit@...ts.linux.dev
Subject: Re: [PATCH] [v3] Documentation: Provide guidelines for
 tool-generated content

On Thu, Jan 08, 2026 at 07:27:17PM +0100, Miguel Ojeda wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 5:42 PM Sasha Levin <sashal@...nel.org> wrote:
> >
> > We already have something like this in Documentation/process/howto.rst:
> >
> >    "Before making any actual modifications to the Linux kernel code, it is
> >     imperative to understand how the code in question works."
>
> The patch already mentions something similar as well:
>
>     Ensure that you understand your entire submission and are prepared
>     to respond to review comments.
>
> And then talks about the maintainers discretion and rejecting etc. at
> the bullet list at the bottom, so it seems fairly clear to me, i.e.
> that patches may get "rejected outright" if one cannot explain the
> submitted series.

I understand that of course. I feel I said it already but perhaps I wasn't
clear. The issue is that this is put very softly and in such a way as to lose
emphasis:

'You _can_ be more transparent by adding information like this:...'

'As with all contributions, individual maintainers have discretion to
choose how they handle the contribution. For example, they _might_:'

'[They might] Ask the submitter to explain in more detail about the contribution
 so that the maintainer can _feel comfortable_ that the submitter fully
 understands how the code works.'

All of this is a little weak and reads like 'please if you could take the
trouble we'd love if you'd maybe abide by this'.

The point is to say very clearly - we won't accept slop.

For all the various arguments I've seen on here, none have amounted to us being
happy to, so I hope that it's not too egregious to ask for that kind of
emphasis.

>
> Cheers,
> Miguel

Thanks, Lorenzo