History log of /linux-master/Documentation/process/howto.rst
Revision Date Author Comments
# 40be2369 04-Feb-2024 Thorsten Blum <thorsten.blum@toblux.com>

Documentation: multiple .rst files: Fix grammar and more consistent formatting

sphinx.rst:
- Remove unnecessary newline
- Fix grammar s/on/in/
- Fix grammar s/check/checks/
- Capitalize heading "The C domain"

changes.rst:
- Remove colon after "pahole" to be consistent with other entries

howto.rst:
- Fix grammar s/you will/will you/
- Hyphenate "real-world problems"

Signed-off-by: Thorsten Blum <thorsten.blum@toblux.com>
Reviewed-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240205000117.3285-1-thorsten.blum@toblux.com


# e49ad853 01-Jan-2024 Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>

CREDITS, MAINTAINERS, docs/process/howto: Update man-pages' maintainer

Michael retired from maintaining the Linux man-pages project in 2021.
See commit 06e72cb19c74d3b1d661609c698ee26d7b6e4d7e ("CONTRIBUTING,
README, lsm: Remove mtk as maintainer") in the Linux man-pages
repository.

Add him to CREDITS.

Reported-by: Ahelenia Ziemiańska <nabijaczleweli@nabijaczleweli.xyz>
Link: <https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/docs/man-pages/man-pages.git/commit/?id=06e72cb19c74d3b1d661609c698ee26d7b6e4d7e>
Acked-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk@man7.org>
Cc: Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Signed-off-by: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20240101124242.8059-2-alx@kernel.org


# 44ac5aba 05-Mar-2023 Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@oracle.com>

Documentation/security-bugs: move from admin-guide/ to process/

Jiri Kosina, Jonathan Corbet, and Willy Tarreau all expressed a desire
to move this document under process/.

Create a new section for security issues in the index and group it with
embargoed-hardware-issues.

I'm doing this at the start of the series to make all the subsequent
changes show up in 'git blame'.

Existing references were updated using:

git grep -l security-bugs ':!Documentation/translations/' | xargs sed -i 's|admin-guide/security-bugs|process/security-bugs|g'
git grep -l security-bugs Documentation/translations/ | xargs sed -i 's|Documentation/admin-guide/security-bugs|Documentation/process/security-bugs|g'
git grep -l security-bugs Documentation/translations/ | xargs sed -i '/Original:/s|\.\./admin-guide/security-bugs|\.\./process/security-bugs|g'

Notably, the page is not moved in the translations (due to my lack of
knowledge of these languages), but the translations have been updated
to point to the new location of the original document where these
references exist.

Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/nycvar.YFH.7.76.2206062326230.10851@cbobk.fhfr.pm/
Suggested-by: Jiri Kosina <jikos@kernel.org>
Cc: Alex Shi <alexs@kernel.org>
Cc: Yanteng Si <siyanteng@loongson.cn>
Cc: Hu Haowen <src.res@email.cn>
Cc: Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>
Cc: Tsugikazu Shibata <tshibata@ab.jp.nec.com>
Cc: Minchan Kim <minchan@kernel.org>
Cc: Jeimi Lee <jamee.lee@samsung.com>
Cc: Carlos Bilbao <carlos.bilbao@amd.com>
Cc: Akira Yokosawa <akiyks@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@oracle.com>
Acked-by: Carlos Bilbao <carlos.bilbao@amd.com>
Reviewed-by: Yanteng Si <siyanteng@loongson.cn>
Reviewed-by: Akira Yokosawa <akiyks@gmail.com>
Acked-by: Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>
Reviewed-by: Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@gmail.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230305220010.20895-2-vegard.nossum@oracle.com
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>


# 2f3f53d6 15-Oct-2022 Akira Yokosawa <akiyks@gmail.com>

docs/process/howto: Replace C89 with C11

Commit e8c07082a810 ("Kbuild: move to -std=gnu11") updated
process/programming-language.rst, but failed to update
process/howto.rst.

Update howto.rst and resolve the inconsistency.

Fixes: e8c07082a810 ("Kbuild: move to -std=gnu11")
Signed-off-by: Akira Yokosawa <akiyks@gmail.com>
Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Cc: Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>
Cc: Alex Shi <alexs@kernel.org>
Cc: Hu Haowen <src.res@email.cn>
Cc: Tsugikazu Shibata <shibata@linuxfoundation.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20221015092201.32099-1-akiyks@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# 7cc39531 29-Sep-2022 Akira Yokosawa <akiyks@gmail.com>

docs/howto: Replace abundoned URL of gmane.org

Somehow, there remains a link to gmane.org, which stopped working
in 2016, in howto.rst. Replace it with the one at lore.kernel.org.
Do the same changes under translations/ as well.

Signed-off-by: Akira Yokosawa <akiyks@gmail.com>
Cc: Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>
Cc: Alex Shi <alexs@kernel.org>
Cc: Yanteng Si <siyanteng@loongson.cn>
Cc: Hu Haowen <src.res@email.cn>
Reviewed-by: Alex Shi <alexs@kernel.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220930021936.26238-1-akiyks@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# 9db370de 04-Jul-2022 Lukas Bulwahn <lukas.bulwahn@gmail.com>

docs: process: remove outdated submitting-drivers.rst

Commit 31b24bee3357 ("docs: add a warning to submitting-drivers.rst")
in October 2016 already warns "This (...) should maybe just be deleted,
but I'm not quite ready to do that yet".

Maybe, six years ago, we were not ready but let us remove old content
for the better now and structure and maintain less content in the kernel
documentation with a better result.

Drop this already outdated document and adjust all textual references.

Here is an argument why deleting the content will not remove any useful
information to the existing kernel documentation, individually broken down
for each section.

Section "Allocating Device Numbers" refers to https://www.lanana.org/, and
then refers to Documentation/admin-guide/devices.rst.

However, the devices.rst clearly states:

"The version of this document at lanana.org is no longer maintained."

Everything needed for submitting drivers is already stated in devices.rst
and the reference to https://www.lanana.org/ is outdated, and should be
just deleted.

Section "Who To Submit Drivers To" is all about Linux 2.0 - 2.6, before
the new release version scheme; the mentioned developers are still around,
but actually not the first developers to contact anymore.

Section "What Criteria Determine Acceptance" has a few bullet points:

Licensing and Copyright is well-covered in process/kernel-license.rst.

Interfaces, Code, Portability, Clarity state some obvious things about
ensuring kernel code quality.

Control suggests to add a MAINTAINERS entry, which is already mentioned in
6.Followthrough.rst: "... added yourself to the MAINTAINERS file..."

PM support states a bit about implementing and testing power management of
a driver, it remains an open question where to place that in the process
documents. Driver developers interested in power management will find the
corresponding part on power management in the kernel documentation anyway.

In section "What Criteria Do Not Determine Acceptance", the points Vendor
and Author states something basic consequence of the kernel being an
open-source community software development. Probably no need to mention it
nowadays.

Section "Resources" lists resources that are also mentioned elsewhere more
central.

- Linux kernel tree and mailing list is mentioned in many places.
- https://lwn.net/Kernel/LDD3/ is mentioned in
Documentation/process/kernel-docs.rst.

- https://lwn.net/ is mentioned in:
- Documentation/process/8.Conclusion.rst
- Documentation/process/kernel-docs.rst

- https://kernelnewbies.org/ is mentioned in:
- Documentation/process/8.Conclusion.rst
- Documentation/process/kernel-docs.rst

- http://www.linux-usb.org/ is mentioned in
Documentation/driver-api/usb/usb.rst

- https://landley.net/kdocs/ols/2002/ols2002-pages-545-555.pdf
is mentioned in Documentation/process/kernel-docs.rst

- https://kernelnewbies.org/KernelJanitors is mentioned in
Documentation/process/howto.rst

- https://git-scm.com/ is mentioned in
- Documentation/process/2.Process.rst
- Documentation/process/7.AdvancedTopics.rst
- Documentation/process/howto.rst

Signed-off-by: Lukas Bulwahn <lukas.bulwahn@gmail.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20220704122537.3407-7-lukas.bulwahn@gmail.com
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# cf6d6fc2 16-Jan-2021 Thorsten Leemhuis <linux@leemhuis.info>

docs: process/howto.rst: make sections on bug reporting match practice

The file Documentation/process/howto.rst points to bugzilla.kernel.org
as the primary place to report kernel bugs to. For most of the kernel
that's the wrong place, as the MAINTAINERS file shows. Adjust those
sections to make them match current practice.

This change also removes a contradiction with the recently added text
Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst, which is a reason for a
'this needs further discussion' warning note in there. The change is
thus a prerequisite to remove that warning, nevertheless it is left for
now to make sure people review the text's approach more carefully.

Signed-off-by: Thorsten Leemhuis <linux@leemhuis.info>
Acked-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20210116143542.69199-1-linux@leemhuis.info
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# da514157 03-Dec-2020 Thorsten Leemhuis <linux@leemhuis.info>

docs: make reporting-bugs.rst obsolete

Make various places which point to
Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-bugs.rst point to
Documentation/admin-guide/reporting-issues.rst instead. That document is
brand new and as of now is not completely finished. But even at this
stage it's a lot more helpful and accurate than reporting-bugs.rst.
Hence also add a note to reporting-bugs.rst, telling people they're
better off reading reporting-issues.rst instead.

reporting-bugs.rst is scheduled for removal once reporting-issues.rst
is considered ready.

Signed-off-by: Thorsten Leemhuis <linux@leemhuis.info>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/3df7c2d16de112b47bb6e6158138608e78562bf5.1607063223.git.linux@leemhuis.info
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# e7b4311e 21-Jun-2020 Alexander A. Klimov <grandmaster@al2klimov.de>

Replace HTTP links with HTTPS ones: Documentation/process

Rationale:
Reduces attack surface on kernel devs opening the links for MITM
as HTTPS traffic is much harder to manipulate.

Deterministic algorithm:
For each file:
If not .svg:
For each line:
If doesn't contain `\bxmlns\b`:
For each link, `\bhttp://[^# \t\r\n]*(?:\w|/)`:
If both the HTTP and HTTPS versions
return 200 OK and serve the same content:
Replace HTTP with HTTPS.

Signed-off-by: Alexander A. Klimov <grandmaster@al2klimov.de>
Acked-by: Miguel Ojeda <miguel.ojeda.sandonis@gmail.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20200621133630.46435-1-grandmaster@al2klimov.de
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# fb0e0ffe 16-Feb-2020 Tony Fischetti <tony.fischetti@gmail.com>

Documentation: bring process docs up to date

The guide to the kernel dev process documentation, for example, contains
references to older kernels and their timelines. In addition, one of the
"long term support kernels" listed have since reached EOL, and a new one
has been named. This patch brings information/tables up to date.

Additionally, some very trivial grammatical errors, unclear sentences,
and potentially unsavory diction have been edited.

Signed-off-by: Tony Fischetti <tony.fischetti@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# 5aff7c46 16-Aug-2019 Jacob Huisman <jacobhuisman@kernelthusiast.com>

docs: process: fix broken link

http://linux.yyz.us/patch-format.html seems to be down since
approximately September 2018. There is a working archive copy on
arhive.org. Replaced the links in documenation + translations.

Signed-off-by: Jacob Huisman <jacobhuisman@kernelthusiast.com>
Reviewed-by: Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# 49afe7e9 08-Apr-2019 Tobin C. Harding <tobin@kernel.org>

docs: Fix spelling mistake

Documentation contains a spelling mistake / typo.

s/descibed/described/

Fix spelling mistake.

Signed-off-by: Tobin C. Harding <tobin@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# d2b008f1 26-Feb-2019 Zenghui Yu <zenghuiyu96@gmail.com>

Documentation/process/howto: Update for 4.x -> 5.x versioning

As linux-5.0 is coming up soon, the howto.rst document can be
updated for the new kernel version. Instead of changing all 4.x
references to 5.x, this time we git rid of all explicit version
numbers and rework some kernel trees' name to keep the docs
current and real.

Signed-off-by: Zenghui Yu <zenghuiyu96@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# 1c7f86cb 21-Feb-2019 Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>

doc: process: complete removal of info about -git patches

The following patch forgot to remove a reference to the -git
patches

commit 2c71d305caf9 ("docs: process: Remove outdated info about -git patches")

This patch complete the removal and update all translations

Signed-off-by: Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>
Acked-by: SeongJae Park <sj38.park@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# 2c71d305 10-Feb-2019 Jonathan Neuschäfer <j.neuschaefer@gmx.net>

docs: process: Remove outdated info about -git patches

As can be seen by clicking around the timeline on web.archive.org[1],
there were no -git patches/tarballs on kernel.org since release 3.1.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20111103073843/http://www.kernel.org/

Signed-off-by: Jonathan Neuschäfer <j.neuschaefer@gmx.net>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# 19c1d46d 30-Jan-2019 Jonathan Neuschäfer <j.neuschaefer@gmx.net>

doc: Change LXR references to elixir.bootlin.com

Recently, Free Electrons was renamed to Bootlin[1]. Less recently, the
Linux Cross Reference (LXR) at lxr.free-electrons.com was replaced by
Elixir[2], and lxr.free-electrons.com redirected first to
elixir.free-electrons.com and now to elixir.bootlin.com.

[1]: https://bootlin.com/blog/free-electrons-becomes-bootlin/
[2]: https://github.com/free-electrons/elixir

Signed-off-by: Jonathan Neuschäfer <j.neuschaefer@gmx.net>
Reviewed-by: Martin Kepplinger <martin.kepplinger@ginzinger.com>
Acked-by: Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# f77af637 20-Nov-2018 Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>

doc:process: add links where missing

Some documents are refering to others without links. With this
patch I add those missing links.

This patch affects only documents under process/ and labels where
necessary.

Signed-off-by: Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# edba5eec 08-Nov-2018 Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>

doc:it_IT: add some process/* translations

This patch does not translate entirely the subfolder "process/"
but only part of it (to begin with).

In order to avoid broken links, I included empty documents
for those which are not yet translated.

In order to be able to refer to all documents in "process/",
I added a sphinx label to those which had not one.

Translated documents:
- howto
- 1.Intro
- clang-format
- coding-style
- kernel-driver-statement
- magic-number
- volatile-considered-harmful
- development-process

Signed-off-by: Federico Vaga <federico.vaga@vaga.pv.it>
Signed-off-by: Alessia Mantegazza <amantegazza@vaga.pv.it>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# 9799445a 14-Aug-2018 Markus Heiser <markus.heiser@darmarit.de>

docs: tidy up TOCs and refs to license-rules.rst

The documentation and TOCs are organized in a manner of a tree. Adding a TOC to
the root, which refers to a file which is located in a subfolder forms a
grid. Those TOCs are a bit confusing and thats why we get additional error
messages while building partial documentation::

$ make SPHINXDIRS=process htmldocs
...
checking consistency... Documentation/process/license-rules.rst: \
WARNING: document isn't included in any toctree

To fix it, the *root-license-TOC* is replaced by a reference and the
'license-roles.txt' is added to the Documentation/process/index.rst TOC.

BTW: there was an old licences remark in Documentation/process/howto.rst which
is also updated, mentioning SPDX and pointing to the license-rules.rst

Signed-off-by: Markus Heiser <markus.heiser@darmarit.de>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# dad05139 03-Jun-2018 Michael Rodin <michael-git@rodin.online>

Documentation/process/howto.rst: add a missing cross-reference

Add a missing cross-reference from Documentation/process/howto.rst
to Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst.

Signed-off-by: Michael Rodin <michael-git@rodin.online>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# bcd3cf08 13-Feb-2018 Jonathan Neuschäfer <j.neuschaefer@gmx.net>

Documentation/process/howto: Remove outdated info about bugzilla mailing lists

The mailing list archives[1,2] show no activity since September 2011.

[1]: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bugme-new/
[2]: https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bugme-janitors/

Signed-off-by: Jonathan Neuschäfer <j.neuschaefer@gmx.net>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# bc0ef4a7 15-Feb-2018 Minghui Liu <minghui.liu.95@gmail.com>

Documentation: Delete reference to the kernel-mentors mailing list

Delete reference to the kernel-mentors mailing list because the mailing list no longer exists

Signed-off-by: Minghui Liu <minghui.liu.95@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# ff41c419 14-May-2017 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org>

docs: update old references for DocBook from the documentation

DocBook is mentioned several times at the documentation. Update
the obsolete references from it at the DocBook.

Acked-by: SeongJae Park <sj38.park@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>


# 388f9b20 28-Nov-2016 Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@oracle.com>

Documentation/process/howto: Only send regression fixes after -rc1

The original text was not clear if white space or other harmless patches
should be merged in -rc kernels. The discussion at Kernel Summit said
that we should be more strict about sending regression fixes only.

Signed-off-by: Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@oracle.com>
Acked-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# d80b9d2a 31-Oct-2016 SeongJae Park <sj38.park@gmail.com>

Documentation/process/howto: Mark subsection in suggested format

`Specific guidelines for the kernel documentation` section of
`kernel-documentation.rst` suggests to use ``~`` for subsection but
subsections in HOWTO is not marked in the format. This commit marks
them in the format.

Signed-off-by: SeongJae Park <sj38.park@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>


# 8c27ceff3 18-Oct-2016 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org>

docs: fix locations of several documents that got moved

The previous patch renamed several files that are cross-referenced
along the Kernel documentation. Adjust the links to point to
the right places.

Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>


# 186128f7 21-Sep-2016 Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org>

docs-rst: add documents to development-process

Add several documents to the development-process ReST book.

As we don't want renames, use symlinks instead, keeping those
documents on their original place.

Acked-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@s-opensource.com>