On Wed, 27 Aug 2025 at 10:19, Linus Torvalds
<torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> And no, some "maybe people add acks or context later" is not a valid
> reason to add a link. If there was no discussion about it at the time
> it was committed, a link to some mailing list posting by definition
> doesn't explain why the commit exists.
Side note: relevant later discussion of patches obviously does happen,
but it's actually more likely to be independent of the mailing list
posting, and instead refer to the commit ID - and the shortlog of the
commit - than to the original posting.
Yes, some bots do obviously traverse the mailing list for patch series
to look at and test, but those bots are the ones that the developer /
maintainer should have reacted to *before* the commit goes upstream,
so finding them after-the-fact is simply not a high priority.
A much more common thing is that the "context added later" is a result
of people and bots reporting problems with a commit that has hit the
git trees, and they do *not* generally reply to the original posting.
So instead those much more relevant reports will typically make an
entirely new thread, mentioning the commit ID and the subject line.
Which is why I think it is so bass-ackwards to add a link to the
posting in the commit. That literally is useless garbage unless the
posting generated discussion. The link to the posting is not likely to
be the most relevant thing: it tends to be *much* more productive to
instead search lore for the commit ID and the subject line of the
commit.
That will obviously find the original posting of the patch too, but it
will *also* find those much more relevant and likely reports about
people/bots reporting issues with a commit in the git tree.
This is why I hate those pointless links so much. They are worthless
garbage. And the "but maybe somebody adds context later" is
intellectually dishonest, since that later context is likely *not*
found behind that link, but through other means entirely.
Linus
