christophpfister@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I will not apologize for this, because it is the truth what I am saying.
Amen :)
We (members and developers) aren't an anarchic society. We're democratic
(at least I hope so - I'm not a maintainer...). So please follow rules to
preserve a good develop environment.
If a patch isn't accepted by a maintainer, he has to give reasons for his
decision. If you don't agree with his decision, you can just call for a vote among maintainers and nothing more.
Christoph-
Thank you for your effort in trying to provide some order to this flame.
As far as for providing reasons for patch rejection -- Yes, it would be
nice, but it can't _always_ happen. You must remember that the people
maintaining this subsystem are doing it in their spare time. It is far
more useful for the maintainers to spend their time writing code and
applying good patches instead of explaining what is wrong with the bad
patches to people that refuse to listen to reason. <-- Now, don't quote
me out of context here. I do agree that every rejection deserves an
explanation, within reason. But you cannot expect anybody to respond to
a repetitious flamer, who continually re-posts the same patch after
being told over and over that it will not be applied.
In this particular circumstance, the patch author is behaving in a
hostile manner. Previous patches from this guy were rejected, and
explanations were provided. Instead of accepting this, the author
starts an email flame, pointing fingers at anyone imaginable. Surely
with my comments in this thread, I am due to be the next victim.
With that said, it should be noted that the author of this patch is
attempting to remove the names of copyright holders from the
documentation. His patch removes everybody's name from the bottom of
the document, replacing with his own name. Nobody has the right to do
this, especially not without approval from the names in question. Once
a copyright is added, it cannot be removed, and the same hold true for
documentation, unless agreed upon by the original copyright holder.
In addition to the above, I really don't see any benefit to making this
change, nor do I think this requires any further debate. The case is
simple enough -- this same patch has been proposed repeatedly, it has
been rejected repeatedly, and the author continues to press the issue.
If there are parts of the documentation that really need to be changed,
it would be a *much* better game plan to make small changes in separate
patches. Only then can the individual changes be dealt with separately,
and perhaps someone could be convinced to apply some parts.
For patch guidelines, please see:
http://www.zip.com.au/~akpm/linux/patches/stuff/tpp.txt
...and also please see README.patches from within the v4l-dvb mercurial
tree.
Given that the author knows how everybody feels about it, I see nothing
wrong if he feels the need to re-post his patch for each new kernel
version. This is an open community, and it causes no harm to post a
patch that will never be included. However, at this point, it is well
known that the patch will not be accepted, and it has gone far beyond
the point where an explanation should be required. The flames are
highly inappropriate, and I ask that everyone stop wasting their time on
this issue.
Regards,
Michael Krufky
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