Re: [PATCH] docs: submitting-patches: Require base tree information

[Krzysztof Kozlowski]

On 20/10/2026 23:22, Eric Biggers wrote:
> -Make sure that base commit is in an official maintainer/mainline tree
> -and not in some internal, accessible only to you tree - otherwise it
> -would be worthless.
> +    If ``git format-patch`` with ``--base=auto`` (or
> +    ``format.useAutoBase=true``) can't detect a base commit, e.g. due to
> +    the current branch having no upstream tracking branch, it exits with
> +    an error. In such cases, pass an explicit base commit to ``--base``
> +    instead. This is also needed if git detects the wrong base commit,
> +    such as when the upstream branch has local, unpublished commits.
> +
> +The base commit must be in a well-known public tree, such as the
> +subsystem development branch the patch is targeting. See
> +:ref:`obtain_a_current_source_tree`. Mainline or the latest linux-next
> +can also be acceptable bases, depending on the subsystem.

I disagree, that's pointlessly too hard requirement.

For many of my contributions base is obvious and not needed to be
explicitly defined. For all the patches I accept, answer is the same -
base is either obvious or if not and patch does not apply, then the base
does not matter.

Requiring it is just bureaucracy without actual benefit.

The only benefit would be if maintainer COULD change its base to apply
some patch with odd base... but this cannot happen. Maintainer base is
fixed - it's the HEAD of his development branch for given category of
commits (e.g. DTS branch for SoC maintainers).

Best regards,
Krzysztof