Re: [PATCH] docs: submitting-patches: Clarify half-baked review tags

[Krzysztof Kozlowski]

On 05/11/2026 09:34, Weijie Yuan wrote:
> Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> 
>> Refactoring of driver subsystems or some core driver parts often come
>> with change of the actual drivers.  If that happens within one patch,
>> people giving "Reviewed-by" tag only to piece of the patch, like one
>> driver, and ignoring entire rest including the main concept of the
>> patch, are not really reviewing "the patch".
>>
>> As explained in Submitting Patches document, the "Reviewer's statement
>> of oversight" is for patch:
>>
>>   (a) I have carried out a technical review of this patch to
>>       evaluate its appropriateness and readiness for inclusion into
>>       the mainline kernel.
>>
>> The sentence is complete, meaning it does not allow implicit variations
>> "this patch or part of this patch".
> 
> Agreed.
> 
>> Reviewing pieces of patch while ignoring the main part of it, is
>> much closer to Acknowledgment, thus Ack, and "Reviewed-by" credit should
>> not be applicable.
> 
> But in this case, I suspect that your "Acked-by" trailer will still be
> interpreted as an ack of the entire patch in future git logs, rather
> than a partial ack and/or a partial review.
> 

Which would be fine, Acked-by has that meaning and no one really counts
Acks or tracks Acks for any metrics or patch quality purposes.

Best regards,
Krzysztof