[PATCH v2] Documentation/SubmittingPatches: discuss In-Reply-To

[Chris Metcalf]

Add a paragraph suggesting best practices for when to link patches
to previous LKML messages via In-Reply-To.

Signed-off-by: Chris Metcalf <cmetcalf@xxxxxxxxxx>
---
 Documentation/SubmittingPatches | 10 ++++++++++
 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
index fd89b04d34f0..9f61620f34ef 100644
--- a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
+++ b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
@@ -675,6 +675,16 @@ A couple of example Subjects:
     Subject: [patch 2/5] ext2: improve scalability of bitmap searching
     Subject: [PATCHv2 001/207] x86: fix eflags tracking
 
+It can be helpful to manually add In-Reply-To: headers to a patch
+(e.g., when using "git send email") to associate the patch with
+previous relevant discussion, e.g. to link a bug fix to the email with
+the bug report.  However, for a multi-patch series, it is generally
+best to avoid using In-Reply-To: to link to older versions of the
+series.  This way multiple versions of the patch don't become an
+unmanageable forest of references in email clients.  If a link is
+helpful, you can use the https://lkml.kernel.org/ redirector (e.g., in
+the cover email text) to link to an earlier version of the patch series.
+
 The "from" line must be the very first line in the message body,
 and has the form:
 
-- 
2.1.2

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