Add the description of the intended use of Helped-by tags, which give credit to the persons who assisted the patch authors in a way that didn't actually contribute to the patch directly, i.e. at the source-code level. Suggested-by: Chen-Yu Tsai <wens@xxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Dragan Simic <dsimic@xxxxxxxxxxx> --- Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst | 12 ++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst index 382c49659cb9..d0d12536ab68 100644 --- a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst +++ b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst @@ -452,8 +452,8 @@ as it was propagated to the maintainers and ultimately to Linus, with the first SoB entry signalling primary authorship of a single author. -When to use Acked-by:, Cc:, and Co-developed-by: ------------------------------------------------- +When to use Acked-by:, Cc:, Co-developed-by:, and Helped-by +----------------------------------------------------------- The Signed-off-by: tag indicates that the signer was involved in the development of the patch, or that he/she was in the patch's delivery path. @@ -495,6 +495,14 @@ chronological history of the patch insofar as possible, regardless of whether the author is attributed via From: or Co-developed-by:. Notably, the last Signed-off-by: must always be that of the developer submitting the patch. +Helped-by: gives attribution to the persons that helped the patch authors +in a way that didn't directly produce the patch itself. For example, someone +may provide significant assistance to the authors by researching the schematic +of a device that the patch addresses, or by providing the patch authors with +some background information required to develop the patch, while contributing +no actual source code. As a result of no direct patch authorship, no +Signed-off-by: tags are needed together with Helped-by: tags. + Note, the From: tag is optional when the From: author is also the person (and email) listed in the From: line of the email header.
