From 25fb101385f7abf6d24ae92cd8f8c84882d1e942 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Miguel Ojeda Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2025 16:29:45 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] docs: submitting-patches: clarify difference between Acked-by and Reviewed-by Newcomers to the kernel need to learn the different tags that are used in commit messages and when to apply them. Acked-by is sometimes misunderstood, since the documentation did not really clarify (up to the previous commit) when it should be used, especially compared to Reviewed-by. The previous commit already clarified who the usual providers of Acked-by tags are, with examples. Thus provide a clarification paragraph for the comparison with Reviewed-by, and give a couple examples reusing the cases given above, in the previous commit. Acked-by: Shuah Khan Acked-by: Dan Williams Signed-off-by: Miguel Ojeda Acked-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman Acked-by: Krzysztof Kozlowski Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20250112152946.761150-3-ojeda@kernel.org --- Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst | 6 ++++++ 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+) diff --git a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst index 1a0669820573d..1a161c092df78 100644 --- a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst +++ b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst @@ -480,6 +480,12 @@ mergers will sometimes manually convert an acker's "yep, looks good to me" into an Acked-by: (but note that it is usually better to ask for an explicit ack). +Acked-by: is also less formal than Reviewed-by:. For instance, maintainers may +use it to signify that they are OK with a patch landing, but they may not have +reviewed it as thoroughly as if a Reviewed-by: was provided. Similarly, a key +user may not have carried out a technical review of the patch, yet they may be +satisfied with the general approach, the feature or the user-facing interface. + Acked-by: does not necessarily indicate acknowledgement of the entire patch. For example, if a patch affects multiple subsystems and has an Acked-by: from one subsystem maintainer then this usually indicates acknowledgement of just