Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Tue, 20 Jan 2004 09:56:41 -0800 (PST) | | From | Linus Torvalds <> | | Subject | Re: [PATCH] fix for ide-scsi crash |
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On Tue, 20 Jan 2004 Andries.Brouwer@cwi.nl wrote: > > If Andries wants to > re-send the whitespace fixes, I can apply those too, but I hate applying > patches like this where the whitespace fixes hide the real fix. > > Yes, it seems we presently have no good mechanism / policy here. > Patches are noise. If some kernel version works and another doesnt, > one has to look at the diffs. Whitespace-only diffs are bad, > I would never submit them. They also needlessly invalidate existing patches.
Whitespace-only diffs can be very useful. In particular, they are common when somebody starts working on a piece of code without a maintainer, and the old code was terminally broken wrt whitespace. Happens quite often in the driver world.
So I don't have any real issues with applying whitespace-only patches, and I much prefer them to patches that mix whitespace and bugfixes. In particular, if the whitespace fixes are preparation for some other cleanup, it's usually a good idea.
(I agree that if the whitespace fix is just random, it's usually not worth it).
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