Sending off kernel patches

On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 1:31 PM,  [off-list ref] wrote:

Hi all!

I'm new to kernel development and I have just started learning how to create linux kernel patches.

I would like to know how the 'signing off' and 'acknowledgment' processes work?

I'm assuming that I as the patch author I need to sign off, but who do I send the file to so that it can be acknowledged? Do I need to find an individual who's actively involved in kernel development?

Thanks in advance!
Adhir

Hello!

Git and some scripts in the kernel tree help a lot.

First of all, when you write a patch, you sign it off in your name
(you can use the -s flag when issuing the git format-patch command),
to take both credit and responsibility for what you wrote.

The patch will be send to one or more mailing lists [0] or to some
persons (top developers). To see who you should send it to, use the
script from the linux tree called scripts/get_maintainer.pl. Just run
that scrip with your patch as the parameter. It will list the emails
you should send to.

Next, you can use the git send-mail command to send the patch itself
to those emails.

If your patch gets accepted by a main developer, (s)he will push the
patch to the main branch, signing it off too.

Do a git log on the linux tree and take a random commit and see the
signed-off-by and acked-by lines and you can use Patchwork [1] or
search through the mailing lists archives to to see who did what
(everything is public).

Hope this helps.

[0] http://vger.kernel.org/vger-lists.html
[1] http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/

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