From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261504AbULUBPc (ORCPT ); Mon, 20 Dec 2004 20:15:32 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261610AbULUBPc (ORCPT ); Mon, 20 Dec 2004 20:15:32 -0500 Received: from mail.dif.dk ([193.138.115.101]:58765 "EHLO mail.dif.dk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261504AbULUBPP (ORCPT ); Mon, 20 Dec 2004 20:15:15 -0500 Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 02:25:54 +0100 (CET) From: Jesper Juhl To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: [PATCH] kill access_ok() call from copy_siginfo_to_user() that we might as well avoid. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > [ Linux-kernel added back into the cc, because I actually think this is > important. ] > > On Tue, 21 Dec 2004, Jesper Juhl wrote: > > > > Should I just stop attemting to make these trivial cleanups/fixes/whatever > > patches? are they more noice than gain? am I being a pain to more skilled > > people on lkml or can you all live with my, sometimes quite ignorant, > > patches? > > I do try to learn from the feedback I get, and I like to think that my > > patches are gradually getting a bit better, but if I'm more of a bother > > than a help I might as well stop. > > To me, the biggest thing with small patches is not necessarily the patch > itself. I think that much more important than the patch is the fact that > people get used to the notion that they can change the kernel - not just > on an intellectual level ("I understand that the GPL means that I have the > right to change my kernel"), but on a more practical level ("Hey, I did > that small change"). > Right, that actually does give one a warm fuzzy feeling inside once in a while and encourages you to carry on. > And whether it ends up being the right thing or not, that's how everybody > starts out. It's simply not possible to "get into" the kernel without > starting out small, and making mistakes. So I very much encourage it, even > if I often don't have the time to actually worry about small patches, and > I try to get suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hother developers like Rusty to try to > acts as quality control and a "gathering place". > > Btw, this is why even "trivial patches" really do take time - they often > have trivial mistakes in them, and it's not just because there are more > inexperienced people doing them - most of _my_ mistakes tend to be at the > truly idiotic level, just because it "looked obvious", and then there's > something that I miss. > > So at one level I absolutely _hate_ trivial patches: they take time and > effort to merge, and individually the patch itself is often not really > obviously "worth it". But at the same time, I think the trivial patches > are among the most important ones - exactly because they are the "entry" > patches for every new developer. > > I just try really hard to find somebody else to worry about them ;) > Heh, quite understandable - I wouldn't want to be at the other end of your mailbox. > (It's not a thankful job, btw, exactly because it _looks_ so trivial. It's > easy to point to 99 patches that are absolutely obvious, and complain > about the fact that they haven't been merged. But they take time to merge > exactly because of that one patch that _did_ look obvious, but wasn't. > And actually, it's usually not 99:1, it's usually more like 10:1 or > something). > > So please don't stop. Yes, those trivial patches _are_ a bother. Damn, > they are _horrible_. But at the same time, the devil is in the detail, and > they are needed in the long run. Both the patches themselves, and the > people that grew up on them. > Ok, thank you so much for that reply. I'll try to keep the pain to a minimum, but I'll keep on doing the trivial (and hopefully in the long run the not-so trivial) patches :) You just brought some courage/spirit/enthusiasm back to a disheartened kernel-hacker-wannabe ;-) Thank you! -- Jesper