Hi Giulio, On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 2:35 AM Giulio Benetti <giulio.benetti@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 18/08/23 01:23, Laurent Pinchart wrote: > > On Fri, Aug 18, 2023 at 12:09:57AM +0200, Giulio Benetti wrote: > >> Sometimes it happens that a Company or a Physical Person sponsors the > >> creation and/or the upstreaming process of a patch, but at the moment > >> there is no way to give credits to it. There are some commit that include > >> a sort of tag "Sponsored by" without the dash to avoid > >> scripts/checkpatch.pl to complain but a real standard has not been defined. > >> With this patch let's try to define a method to give credits consistently > >> including an acknowledge from the sponsor. The goal is to improve > >> contributions from companies or physical persons that this way should gain > >> visibility in Linux kernel and so they should be more prone to let the > >> work done for them for to be upstreamed. > > > > Just adding one data point here, without judging on the merits of this > > proposal. I've been requested previously by customers to increase their > > visibility in the kernel development statistics, and the way we found to > > do so was to sign-off patches with > > > > Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart+customer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > > > (where "customer" is to be replaced with the customer name). > > this approach works good for the developer because of the +customer > mailbox capability but in term of appeal for the final customer I've > been told(by the customer) he would really like more the "Sponsored-by:" > way. To tell the truth while I was looking for an existing alternative > I've found the commits with "Sponsored by:" pseudo-tag that look cooler. > > This is my taste of course and the taste of one of my customers, but > to me it's like having a brand shown: > Sponsored-by: Sponsoring Company > vs: > Signed-off-by: Giulio Benetti > <giulio.benetti+sponsor.company@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Personally, I would respond "I'm sorry, but the only advertising space we offer are Copyright headers (for employees) and "user+customer@..." or "name (customer) user@..." (for contractors). And this is a separate tag, so it's harder for the analysis tools (whose output your customers must be interested in, too?) to match the tag to the actual Author/Reviewer/... > If I am the customer I'd really prefer the first option. You are aware this will cause lots of work for the customer, too? (See below). > >> Signed-off-by: Giulio Benetti <giulio.benetti@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > >> --- > >> Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst | 38 ++++++++++++++++++++ > >> 1 file changed, 38 insertions(+) > >> > >> diff --git a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst > >> index efac910e2659..870e6b5def3f 100644 > >> --- a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst > >> +++ b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst > >> @@ -600,6 +600,44 @@ process nor the requirement to Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on all stable > >> patch candidates. For more information, please read > >> Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst. > >> > >> +Using Sponsored-by: > >> +------------------- > >> + > >> +A Sponsored-by tag gives credit to who sponsored the creation and/or the > >> +upstreaming process of the patch. Sponsored-by can contain a company name or > >> +a physical person name. If a company sponsored the patch this is the form:: > >> + > >> + Company Name <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > >> + > >> +where the Company Name must be a valid Business Name at the time of sending the > >> +patch until the confirmation of the Sponsored-by tag, while the e-mail can be > >> +either a generic e-mail the company can be reached out or an e-mail of a person > >> +who has the rights inside it to confirm the Sponsored-by tag. > >> + > >> +If a physical person sponsored the patch the form must be same used in > >> +Signed-off-by tag:: > >> + > >> + Physical Person <physical.person@xxxxxxxx> > >> + > >> +In both cases, to prevent fake credits, either the company or the person should > >> +send an Acked-by tag placed right under Sponsored-by tag using the same form > >> +described above. So for example if the patch contains:: > >> + > >> + <changelog> > >> + > >> + Sponsored-by: Company Name <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > >> + Signed-off-by: Developer Name <developer.name@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > >> + > >> +The result including the answer from the sponsor must be:: > >> + > >> + <changelog> > >> + > >> + Sponsored-by: Company Name <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > >> + Acked-by: Company Name <mail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > >> + Signed-off-by: Developer Name <developer.name@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > >> + > >> +This way the sponsor agrees to the usage of this tag using its name. This is also causing more work for maintainers: now they have to check if any Sponsored-by tags are present, and track if there is a response with a matching Acked-by tag... And obviously they should postpone applying the patch until a confirmation response is sent... which may never happen... Gr{oetje,eeting}s, Geert -- Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds