Re: [PATCH v3] Documentation/process: Add text to indicate supporters should be mailed

[Bryan O'Donoghue]

On 01/10/2022 03:37, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> FWIW, I actually think the output of get_maintainer.pl is pretty
> broken in this regard.  (Then again, I've never thought all that
> highly of get_maintainer.pl,*especially*  because of the bogus git
> fallback, but that's another story.)
>
> Consider:
>
> % ./scripts/get_maintainer.pl --file  drivers/acpi/power.c
> "Rafael J. Wysocki"<rafael@xxxxxxxxxx>  (supporter:ACPI)
> Len Brown<lenb@xxxxxxxxxx>  (reviewer:ACPI)
> linux-acpi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  (open list:ACPI)
> linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  (open list)
>
> I'm sorry, but that's just*wrong*.  Rafael is the*maintainer*  of the
> ACPI subsystem, and the term "supporter" is rarely if ever used
> anywhere in our docs.  As I said earlier, trying to treat S: field to
> say anything about the entitles listed under the M: field of the
> Maintainers file is a category error.

I agree, I made exactly this error.

I wasn't sure how people would necessarily feel about having 
get_maintainer produce the string 'maintainer' for both Maintained and 
Supported but, IMO it is more consistent to have it do so, since we 
refer to maintainers all throughout the doucmentation and as you say 
above Rafael is the person you *need* to mail there because he's the 
maintainer.

Lets consider

- maintainer as a string for "S: Supported"
- Documentation update to reflect Krzysztof's point on git-fallback

---
bod