Re: [GIT PULL] pwm: Changes for v5.11-rc1

[Linus Torvalds]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 4:57 PM Thierry Reding <thierry.reding@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I didn't realize that this would show up as all new commits. The reason
> why this happens is because the first commit in the tree is a fix for an
> issue for which Uwe had sent an alternative patch to you directly for
> inclusion in v5.10.
>
> After going over the patches again as I was preparing the pull request,
> I realized that the commit message was no longer accurate, so I changed
> the commit message of the first commit, which then caused all of the
> subsequent patches (i.e. all of them) to be rewritten.

Ok, when you do things like this, please mention it in the pull
request so that I can see why history has been changed.

In general, I'm not sure it's worth changing commit messages unless
they are just *horribly* bad. That's a gray area, of course, so
there's no hard rule about when to do it. If it's just "not really
true any more", I'd say let it go. If it's a horrible mess that will
be very misleading if people start looking at that commit, then yeah,
go ahead and fix up it, but remember that you _are_ changing history.

Changing history _can_ have good reasons. But particularly when they
happen just before a pull request, please please PLEASE make it clear
in the pull what happened.

            Linus