Maintainer Handbook: Maintainer Entry Profile

Maintainer Handbook: Maintainer Entry Profile

As presented at the 2018 Linux Plumbers conference [1], the Maintainer
Entry Profile (formerly Subsystem Profile) is proposed as a way to reduce
friction between committers and maintainers and encourage conversations
amongst maintainers about common best practices. While coding-style,
submit-checklist, and submitting-drivers lay out some common expectations
there remain local customs and maintainer preferences that vary by
subsystem.

The profile contains documentation of some of the common policy
questions a contributor might have that are local to the subsystem /
device-driver, special considerations for the subsystem, or other
guidelines that are otherwise not covered by the top-level process
documents.

The initial and hopefully non-controversial headings in the profile are:

    Overview:
    General introduction to how the subsystem operates

    Submit Checklist Addendum:
    Mechanical items that gate submission staging, or other requirements
    that gate patch acceptance.

    Key Cycle Dates:
     - Last -rc for new feature submissions: Expected lead time for submissions
     - Last -rc to merge features: Deadline for merge decisions

    Resubmit Cadence: When and preferred method to follow up with the
    maintainer

Note that coding style guidelines are explicitly left out of this list.

See Documentation/maintainer/maintainer-entry-profile.rst for more details,
and a follow-on example profile for the libnvdimm subsystem.

[1]: https://linuxplumbersconf.org/event/2/contributions/59/

Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org>
Cc: Steve French <stfrench@microsoft.com>
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Tobin C. Harding <me@tobin.cc>
Cc: Olof Johansson <olof@lixom.net>
Cc: Martin K. Petersen <martin.petersen@oracle.com>
Cc: Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@ffwll.ch>
Cc: Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>
Cc: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Cc: Alexandre Belloni <alexandre.belloni@bootlin.com>
Cc: Paul Walmsley <paul.walmsley@sifive.com>
Signed-off-by: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/157462919309.1729495.10585699280061787229.stgit@dwillia2-desk3.amr.corp.intel.com
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>