Subject: Re: [PATCH docs v2] docs: maintainer: document expectations of small time maintainers

From: Jakub Kicinski <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2023 11:36:22 -0700

On Wed, 19 Jul 2023 11:54:53 -0600 Rob Herring wrote:
> > We appear to have a gap in our process docs. We go into detail
> > on how to contribute code to the kernel, and how to be a subsystem
> > maintainer. I can't find any docs directed towards the thousands
> > of small scale maintainers, like folks maintaining a single driver
> > or a single network protocol.  
> 
> I think the split is great. It would be even better if this
> distinction could be made in MAINTAINERS and then the tools could use
> that. For example, on treewide changes on Cc subsystem maintainers and
> skip driver maintainers. The problem right now is Cc'ing everyone
> quickly hits maillist moderation for too many recipients.

Interesting idea. I wonder how much of this can be accomplished by
improvements to get_maintainers and interpreting what we already have.
There are inverse annoyances, too, where patches for subsystems get
CCed all the way up the hierarchy and including linux-kernel@
for not apparent reason. We have to go sprinkle X: entries in
MAINTAINERS currently to prevent it.

In any case, I think that's a bit tangential. I sent a v3 already
'cause people kept reporting the same typoes :)