Re: [RFC PATCH 0/8] staging: apfs: init APFS module

[Aditya Garg <gargaditya08@live.com>]

> On 15 Mar 2025, at 7:42 PM, Ethan Carter Edwards <ethan@ethancedwards.com> wrote:
> 
> On 25/03/15 07:21AM, Aditya Garg wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>>> On 15 Mar 2025, at 12:39 PM, Aditya Garg <gargaditya08@live.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On 15 Mar 2025, at 3:27 AM, Ethan Carter Edwards <ethan@ethancedwards.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Hello everyone,
>>>> 
>>>> This is a follow up patchset to the driver I sent an email about a few
>>>> weeks ago [0]. I understand this patchset will probably get rejected,
>>>> but I wanted to report on what I have done thus far. I have got the
>>>> upstream module imported and building, and it passes some basic tests
>>>> so far (I have not tried getting XFS/FStests running yet).
>>>> 
>>>> Like mentioned earlier, some of the files have been moved to folios, but
>>>> a large majority of them still use bufferheads. I would like to have
>>>> them completely removed before moved from staging/ into fs/.
>>>> 
>>>> I have split everything up into separate commits as best as I could.
>>>> Most of the C files rely in functions from other C files, so I included
>>>> them all in one patch/commit.
>>>> 
>>>> I am curious to hear everyone's thoughts on this and to start getting
>>>> the ball rolling for the code-review process. Please feel free to
>>>> include/CC anyone who may be interested in this driver/the review
>>>> process. I have included a few people, but have certainly missed others.
>>>> 
>>>> [0]: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20250307165054.GA9774@eaf/
>>>> 
>>>> Signed-off-by: Ethan Carter Edwards <ethan@ethancedwards.com>
>>> 
>>> Why hasn’t Ernesto signed-off here, or in any patch? AFAIK, he is the author of the driver.
>> 
>> I can also see your Copyright at some places, which I didn't find in the upstream repo. Did you add some code change?
> 
> Yes, there were some slight refactors in some files to get the code
> compiling. I only added my copyright in files where I changed things. I
> can remove them. I was not sure what to do.
> 
>> 
>> IMO, if you are just maintaining it, doesn't mean you add your copyright. Eg: I maintain the appletbdrm driver, but I didn't write or add anything special in it, so it doesn’t have my copyright.
> 
> Sure. That is logical. I'll remove them in the next series.
> 
>> 
>> Also, did you ask Ernesto whether he wants to be a co maintainer?
>> 
> 
> Kinda? https://github.com/linux-apfs/linux-apfs-rw/issues/68#issuecomment-2608400271
> See that link. I did not really get an answer, so I decided to start the
> process anyways. If he does not want to co-maintain, I completely
> understand. I don't want to assume he is willing to. Ultimately, it is
> up to him.

I see that Ernesto signs all his commits, giving you legally an option to sign off the series on his behalf. Also, the repository that GPL2 license, making things more easier. But ethically, I would prefer to have an ack or go ahead from ernesto if possible. I myself have been in situations where people write a driver, and disappear. Their sign off on that driver commits and GPL2 license is what makes things legal then.

So in a nutshell, all commits should have a signed-off-by from ernesto, especially when he is signing the commits in the GitHub repository. And an ack from him on LKML would be appreciated.

P.S. this is my interpretation of all the legal stuff and is followed by me on Linux, after all there is no clear documentation I have encountered in such cases, but the main take depends on the upstream maintainers.