On Sat, 13 Jul 2024 17:26:51 +0300 Laurent Pinchart wrote: > > +Open development > > +---------------- > > + > > +Discussions about user reported issues, and development of new code > > +should be conducted in a manner typical for the larger subsystem. > > +It is common for development within a single company to be conducted > > +behind closed doors. However, maintainers must not redirect discussions > > +and development related to the upstream code from the upstream mailing lists > > +to closed forums or private conversations. Reasonable exceptions to this > > +guidance include discussions about security related issues. > > Overall I think this is fine, but I'm a bit concerned it could be > interpreted too broadly. Brainstorming on mailing lists is hard, and > kernel communities often conduct technical discussions face to face, in > conferences or other events. Sometimes those discussions are as private > as they can get, I've found myself cycling multiple times to the office > of a fellow developer who happens to work close to my place in order to > discuss kernel API design in front of a white board. We did our best to > publish brainstorming notes on mailing lists, and patches are then of > course reviewed and further discussed in public. Is this a behaviour you > want to discourage, or is this considered fine ? That's fine. I hope in the context of the rest of the doc the new section makes sense. The doc is aimed at less upstream-savvy driver maintainers. The section before says "you must respond to bug reports" and the section after says "the person selected as maintainer should be a developer not a manager". I hope when reading in that context it is fairly clear that these are not "rules of Linux". More pointing out where folks more familiar with corporate environment get tripped up. I was planning to add this guidance to maintainer-netdev, but folks pushed back saying that the guidance is generally applicable. I semi-quoted some example situation we're aiming at here: https://lore.kernel.org/all/20240712164504.76b15e31@xxxxxxxxxx/
