Re: [PATCH] docs: process: Add base-commit trailer usage

[Konstantin Ryabitsev]

On Thu, Nov 07, 2019 at 01:00:52PM -0700, Jonathan Corbet wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Oct 2019 10:00:50 -0400
> Konstantin Ryabitsev <konstantin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > One of the recurring complaints from both maintainers and CI system
> > operators is that performing git-am on received patches is difficult
> > without knowing the parent object in the git history on which the
> > patches are based. Without this information, there is a high likelihood
> > that git-am will fail due to conflicts, which is particularly
> > frustrating to CI operators.
> >
> > Git versions starting with v2.9.0 are able to automatically include
> > base-commit information using the --base flag of git-format-patch.
> > Document this usage in process/submitting-patches, and add the rationale
> > for its inclusion, plus instructions for those not using git on where
> > the "base-commit:" trailer should go.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Konstantin Ryabitsev <konstantin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> I really wish we could find a way to make submitting-patches.rst shorter
> rather than longer - it's a lot for a first-time submitter to work
> through.  But this is useful information, so I've applied it.

I think that's the eventual goal, and I'm happy to take a stab at making 
this page shorter. The easiest would be to rewrite that page so that it 
only includes git-specific instructions. I think at this point in time 
we can safely say that anyone who need guidance on submitting patches 
would be already using git -- anyone who doesn't use git for that 
process doesn't really need this doc anyway.

I'll work on an RFC patch to slim this doc down.

-K