Re: Linus, Patches, etc.

Ion Badulescu (ionut@moisil.cs.columbia.edu)
Sun, 4 Oct 1998 07:56:55 -0400

On Sun, 04 Oct 1998 02:24:05 -0400, Feuer wrote:
> If I were Linus (and I am definitely not), I would assign an official
> contact person for each subsystem (VFS, ext2, mm, sound, lp, etc. etc.
> etc.). Everyone would send patches to the contact person (or subsystem
> mailing list) and the contact person would do the patch selection,
> combination, etc. and pass the results up to Linus for final
> approval+inclusion. I think this would lessen his load, increase the
> chances of good patches getting in, and avoid hassles. Just my $.02.

And it would almost certainly increase the average size of the patches
reaching Linus, with high chances that small changes would go undocumented
simply because the "contact person" doesn't remember them. So Linus would
have two very unpleasant choices: either loosen his control over the
kernel ("this comes from contact person X, I won't check it"), or wade
through a 700k patch trying to understand what the hell is in there.

Think about it for a second, and re-read Linus' message: it's not the
_number_ of patches he is complaining about, but the _size_ of those
patches, coupled with the insufficient description of what's in the patch.
Given that's it hard to document aggregate patches, and it's even harder
for Linus to reject only parts of such an aggregate patch, I don't think
this is the solution we're looking for.

My $.02 as well.
Ion

-- 
  It is better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool,
            than to open it and remove all doubt.
:.˛mkabzwmb˛mbz_^nrzh&zvy杶ii