Re: [PATCH v6] [gdb]: add git trailer information on gdb/MAINTAINERS

[Guinevere Larsen <blarsen@redhat.com>]

On 28/11/2023 20:36, John Baldwin wrote:
> On 11/28/23 9:15 AM, Guinevere Larsen wrote:
>> On 28/11/2023 17:39, John Baldwin wrote:
>>> On 11/2/23 6:54 AM, Guinevere Larsen wrote:
>>>> The project has been using Tested-By (tb), Reviewed-By (rb) and
>>>> Approved-By (ab) for some time, but there has been no information 
>>>> to be
>>>> found in the actual repository. This commit changes that by adding
>>>> information about all git trailers to the MAINTAINERS file, so that it
>>>> can be easily double-checked. Simply put, the trailers in use work as
>>>> follows:
>>>>
>>>> * Tested-by: The person tested the patch and it fixes the problem, or
>>>>     introduces no regressions (or both).
>>>> * Acked-by: The general outline looks good, but the maintainer hasn't
>>>>     looked at the code
>>>> * Reviewed-by: The code looks good, but the reviewer has not approved
>>>>     the patch to go upstream
>>>> * Approved-by: The patch is ready to be pushed to master
>>>>
>>>> These last 3 trailers can also be restricted to one or more areas 
>>>> of GDB
>>>> by adding the areas in a comma separated list in parenthesis after the
>>>> trailers.
>>>>
>>>> Finally, for completeness sake, the trailers Co-Authored-By and Bug
>>>> were added, even though they have been in use for a long time already
>>>>
>>>> ---
>>>>    gdb/MAINTAINERS | 93 
>>>> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----
>>>>    1 file changed, 85 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
>>>>
>>>> diff --git a/gdb/MAINTAINERS b/gdb/MAINTAINERS
>>>> index 9989956065e..e1bb437a675 100644
>>>> --- a/gdb/MAINTAINERS
>>>> +++ b/gdb/MAINTAINERS
>>>> @@ -43,14 +43,9 @@ patch without review from another maintainer.
>>>> This especially includes
>>>>    patches which change internal interfaces (e.g. global functions, 
>>>> data
>>>>    structures) or external interfaces (e.g. user, remote, MI, et 
>>>> cetera).
>>>>    -The term "review" is used in this file to describe several kinds
>>>> of feedback
>>>> -from a maintainer: approval, rejection, and requests for changes or
>>>> -clarification with the intention of approving a revised version.
>>>> Review is
>>>> -a privilege and/or responsibility of various positions among the GDB
>>>> -Maintainers.  Of course, anyone - whether they hold a position but
>>>> not the
>>>> -relevant one for a particular patch, or are just following along 
>>>> on the
>>>> -mailing lists for fun, or anything in between - may suggest 
>>>> changes or
>>>> -ask questions about a patch!
>>>> +The word "contributor" is used in this document to refer to any GDB
>>>> +developer listed above as well as folks who may have suggested some
>>>> +patches but aren't part of one of those categories for any reason.
>>>>      There's also a couple of other people who play special roles in
>>>> the GDB
>>>>    community, separately from the patch process:
>>>> @@ -78,6 +73,88 @@ consensus among the global maintainers and any
>>>> other involved parties.
>>>>    In cases where consensus can not be reached, the global maintainers
>>>> may
>>>>    ask the official FSF-appointed GDB maintainers for a final 
>>>> decision.
>>>>    +The term "review" is used in this file to describe several 
>>>> kinds of
>>>> +feedback from a maintainer: approval, rejection, and requests for
>>>> changes
>>>> +or clarification with the intention of approving a revised version.
>>>> +Approval is a privilege and/or responsibility of various positions
>>>> among
>>>> +the GDB Maintainers.  Of course, anyone - whether they hold a
>>>> position, but
>>>> +not the relevant one for a particular patch, or are just following
>>>> along on
>>>> +the mailing lists for fun, or anything in between - may suggest
>>>> changes, ask
>>>> +questions about a patch or say if they believe a patch is fit for
>>>> upstreaming!
>>>> +
>>>> +To ensure that patches are only pushed when approved, and to
>>>> properly credit
>>>> +the contributors who take the time to improve this project, the
>>>> following
>>>> +trailers are used to identify who contributed and how.  All patches
>>>> pushed
>>>> +upstream should have at least one Approved-By trailers (with the
>>>> exception of
>>>> +obvious patches, see below).  The trailers (or tags) currently in
>>>> use are:
>>>
>>> This next to last sentence doesn't match current practice where a
>>> maintainer
>>> pushes a self-approved change.  That is, to date we haven't used any
>>> 'Approved-by: <self>' trailers and this would seem to mandate that?
>>
>> It would certainly encourage that. My reasoning to want to encourage it
>> is that it makes things simpler to automate. For example, if we ever
>> decide to have a pre-receive hook on the remote, we could check for an
>> approval tag (and maybe add an explicit call-out to the obvious fix
>> rule), but I didn't want to bog down this first discussion with that
>> automation idea.
>
> I think it's probably useful to have some balance that doesn't 
> necessarily
> require automated checking.  In particular, my worry is that adding self
> approval trailers will dilute the meaning of the trailers somewhat.  I
> think it is useful for approval to always mean someone else besides the
> committer approved the change so that self-approved commits do stand out.

This makes sense, I hadn't considered that self approval wouldn't be as 
obvious, you make a good point. That and the fact that exceptions would 
already be needed because of the obvious fix rule, I think I'll remove 
this sentence from the update.

The new version will look like this:

    To ensure that patches are only pushed when approved, and to 
properly credit
    the contributors who take the time to improve this project, the 
following
    trailers are used to identify who contributed and how.  The trailers 
(or tags)
    currently in use are:

>
>>> (Also, s/trailers/trailer/ in that sentence)
>>>
>>> Also, there is some inconsistency with "by" vs "By" in this change.
>>> For example,
>>> this paragraph uses 'Approved-By' but the description below uses
>>> 'Approved-by'.
>>> The manpages for git(1) (e.g. git-interpret-trailer(1)) tend to only
>>> capitalize
>>> the first word, e.g. 'Signed-off-by'.
>>>
>>> Our existing log messages are a bit all over the place currently, e.g.
>>> for
>>> Co-authored-by we have the following in master to date:
>>>
>>>   127 Co-Authored-By:
>>>     9 Co-Authored-by:
>>>    35 Co-authored-by:
>>>
>>> For both Approved-by and Reviewed-by the uppercase 'By' variants
>>> outnumber
>>> lowercase 'by' by a fair margin.
>>
>> This would seem to imply that we want to standardize capitalizing all
>> words, right? It's different to the manual, but is the most common in
>> our logs
>
> I will defer to the consensus of other folks here on which one to pick.
> I just think there's value in picking one and then being consistent. :)
That's fair. I have standardized on capitalizing all words, but I'll 
wait for other opinions before pushing.

-- 
Cheers,
Guinevere Larsen
She/Her/Hers

>
>> I will fix everything else you mentioned locally, but I don't think it's
>> worth sending a new version with these small changes. Let me know if you
>> disagree, though
>
> That's fine, no need to re-send.
>