[PATCH v3] docs: submitting-patches: Clarify partial review tags

[PATCH v3] docs: submitting-patches: Clarify partial review tags

[Krzysztof Kozlowski]

Refactoring of driver subsystems or some core driver parts often come
with change of the actual drivers.  If that happens within one patch,
people giving "Reviewed-by" tag only to piece of the patch, like one
driver, and ignoring the rest including the main concept of the patch,
are not really reviewing "the patch".

As explained in the Submitting Patches document, the "Reviewer's
statement of oversight" is for patch as in "entire patch" meaning:

  (a) I have carried out a technical review of this patch to
      evaluate its appropriateness and readiness for inclusion into
      the mainline kernel.

The sentence is explicit, exhaustive and complete, meaning it does not
allow implicit variations like: "this patch or part of this patch".

Reviewing pieces of the patch while ignoring the main part of it, is
much closer to Acknowledgment, thus Ack or at least "Reviewed-by" should
be followed by '# subpart' suffix.

Reviewed-by: Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski@oss.qualcomm.com>
---
Changes in v3:
1. Minor commit msg adjustments
2. Use  Driver X author <foo@example.org> # for Driver
3. Tag

Changes in v2:
1. Few grammar fixes in text and commit msg.
2. Mention the "# subpart-name" marker solution.

Cc: Wolfram Sang <wsa+renesas@sang-engineering.com>
Cc: Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com>
---
 Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst | 5 +++++
 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
index f271d7413f72..040f81b2bedf 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
@@ -585,6 +585,11 @@ serves to give credit to reviewers and to inform maintainers of the degree of
 review which has been done on the patch.  Reviewed-by: tags, when supplied by
 reviewers known to understand the subject area and to perform thorough reviews,
 will normally increase the likelihood of your patch getting into the kernel.
+If the reviewer checks only a piece of the patch, leaving the rest unreviewed,
+especially skipping the main concept of the patch, then more appropriate is
+an Acked-by tag or adding a "# subpart-name" marker after the Reviewed-by tag:
+
+	Reviewed-by: Driver X Reviewer <foo@example.org> # for Driver
 
 Both Tested-by and Reviewed-by tags, once received on mailing list from tester
 or reviewer, should be added by author to the applicable patches when sending
-- 
2.53.0

Re: [PATCH v3] docs: submitting-patches: Clarify partial review tags

[Geert Uytterhoeven]

On Tue, 10 Nov 2026 at 15:36, Krzysztof Kozlowski
<krzysztof.kozlowski@oss.qualcomm.com> wrote:
> Refactoring of driver subsystems or some core driver parts often come
> with change of the actual drivers.  If that happens within one patch,
> people giving "Reviewed-by" tag only to piece of the patch, like one
> driver, and ignoring the rest including the main concept of the patch,
> are not really reviewing "the patch".
>
> As explained in the Submitting Patches document, the "Reviewer's
> statement of oversight" is for patch as in "entire patch" meaning:
>
>   (a) I have carried out a technical review of this patch to
>       evaluate its appropriateness and readiness for inclusion into
>       the mainline kernel.
>
> The sentence is explicit, exhaustive and complete, meaning it does not
> allow implicit variations like: "this patch or part of this patch".
>
> Reviewing pieces of the patch while ignoring the main part of it, is
> much closer to Acknowledgment, thus Ack or at least "Reviewed-by" should
> be followed by '# subpart' suffix.
>
> Reviewed-by: Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com>
> Signed-off-by: Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski@oss.qualcomm.com>
> ---
> Changes in v3:
> 1. Minor commit msg adjustments
> 2. Use  Driver X author <foo@example.org> # for Driver
> 3. Tag

Reviewed-by: Geert Uytterhoeven <geert+renesas@glider.be>

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

                        Geert

-- 
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
                                -- Linus Torvalds

Re: [PATCH v3] docs: submitting-patches: Clarify partial review tags

[Wolfram Sang]

On Tue, Nov 10, 2026 at 03:14:30PM +0100, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
> Refactoring of driver subsystems or some core driver parts often come
> with change of the actual drivers.  If that happens within one patch,
> people giving "Reviewed-by" tag only to piece of the patch, like one
> driver, and ignoring the rest including the main concept of the patch,
> are not really reviewing "the patch".
> 
> As explained in the Submitting Patches document, the "Reviewer's
> statement of oversight" is for patch as in "entire patch" meaning:
> 
>   (a) I have carried out a technical review of this patch to
>       evaluate its appropriateness and readiness for inclusion into
>       the mainline kernel.
> 
> The sentence is explicit, exhaustive and complete, meaning it does not
> allow implicit variations like: "this patch or part of this patch".
> 
> Reviewing pieces of the patch while ignoring the main part of it, is
> much closer to Acknowledgment, thus Ack or at least "Reviewed-by" should
> be followed by '# subpart' suffix.
> 
> Reviewed-by: Andy Shevchenko <andriy.shevchenko@linux.intel.com>
> Signed-off-by: Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski@oss.qualcomm.com>

Reviewed-by: Wolfram Sang <wsa+renesas@sang-engineering.com>