Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next 00/30] net: dsa: mt7530: improve, trap BPDU & LLDP, and prefer CPU port

From: Jakub Kicinski <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 May 2023 18:54:35 -0700

On Mon, 22 May 2023 19:13:31 +0100 Russell King (Oracle) wrote:
> > I have noticed that in many patches of the series you have:
> > Tested-by: Arınç ÜNAL <[email-masked]>
> > 
> > Where you also have:
> > Signed-off-by: Arınç ÜNAL <[email-masked]>
> > 
> > I think you can drop Tested-by as the SoB will imply that. I think you
> > got a similar comment some time ago to a different patch series.  
> 
> Signed-off-by in no way implies a tested-by. Signed-off-by has a very
> distinct definition that is in submitting-patches.rst.
> 
> Clearly, if one is working on infrastructure where there are numerous
> drivers involved, one probably doesn't have all the hardware, and one
> may have to send patches that have only been build tested, but never
> tested against real hardware.
> 
> While we may attempt to elicit testing, most of the time this seems
> to be a waste of time and effort - or at least that's my experience.
> Even if you Cc people who have recently been active with hardware,
> that is no guarantee that there will be any reaction.
> 
> That has got to the point now where I just don't bother trying to
> elicit help from others to test driver changes. If people want to
> test, they need to do so when they see a patch on the mailing list,
> preferably before it gets applied. If not, and if it breaks something,
> then we'll have to generate a patch to fix the breakage.
> 
> So no, please stop thinking that SoB implies that the patch has been
> tested.

Dunno, I had the same reaction as Horatiu. Adding "Compile tested only"
in the commit messages of patches which author wasn't able to test seems
more natural than assuming that nothing is tested by default.

It's not a hard requirement, e.g. seems fairly common sense that cross-
-driver work comes with limited testing coverage. But for someone
working on a single driver, assuming not tested by default, again, 
to me - feels odd.