Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 16 Apr 2009 09:56:51 +0200 | From | Ingo Molnar <> | Subject | Re: Fix quilt merge error in acpi-cpufreq.c |
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* Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au> wrote:
> On Thu, 16 Apr 2009 04:17:49 am H. Peter Anvin wrote: > > Linus Torvalds wrote: > > "build fix" is valid and proper use: it tells that it > > fixes a compilation error, which succinctly communicates both the > > priority of the fix and how it needs to be validated. > > Side note: I really prefer to see the compile error output in this > case: great for googling. It annoys me when people skip this. > > Anyway, Impact: had lead me to think harder about my messages than > the free-form commit style did. Perhaps it's too rigid, but it > helped.
btw., and i think this is the crux of the matter, Rusty was quite sceptic about impact lines in the beginning, and did not like them _at all_. We had discussions (months ago) about it with Rusty and he had a similar position to other "read only" participants in this thread.
And i can tell it from the other side of the fence: Rusty's trees were very nice before, but they became _even_ nicer after he started using impact lines. It was very noticeable.
Impact lines are intentionally rigid - but all 'forced' measures (like signed-off lines, or a title, or other patch submission standards) are rigid in a way and they elicit an initial backlash from people who have never adhered to them before.
Impact lines have most of their effects on the people who _write_ them: contributors and first-hop maintainers. Their role becomes informative as the hops increase - and they might even become annoyingly meaningless and verbose as the hop count reaches Linus ;-)
Ingo
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