[U-Boot] sending updated patch versions

[Scott Wood]

On Mon, 4 Jul 2011 17:05:28 +0200
Wolfgang Denk <wd at denx.de> wrote:

> Dear Holger,
> 
> In message <4E119D36.7040900 at keymile.com> you wrote:
> >
> > and I wonder if it is needed to update the history of *all* patches in a serie
> > even if for different specific patches nothing was changed. Or if it sufficient
> > if only the subject indicates the version number for such patches.
> 
> If you keep the threading of the messages intact (i. e. supply proper
> In-reply-to: and References: headers - like you get automatically when
> inserting the message ID when "git send-email" asks for the
> "Message-ID to be used as In-Reply-To for the first email"), then
> there is usually no need to resend unchanged patces at all - what for?
> It would be just a waste of effort and bandwidth.

IMHO, it makes it easier for the maintainer to collect the full patchset for
applying.  There's also possibility that there is another patch in the
series that got updated, but the message got lost, deleted,
forgotten, filtered to a different folder (especially if the patchset is
crossposted to multiple mailing lists), etc.

It's also more effort for the sender to prune out such patches than to
leave them in, and more effort for people reading the patchset to track
down the missing pieces (even with threading -- the old messages may have
been deleted, especially if it's been a while).

The extra bandwidth is negligible.

> > E.g patch serie where only 1 patch has changes requested, do I need to update
> > all other patches with the history:
> > 
> > "Changes for v2: - nothing"
> 
> No. Please don't repost the unchanged patches at all. Repost just the
> one that you modified.
> 
> 
> There are only few cases where you have biggger or more complicated
> series of patches, which undergo a number of changes here and there
> where it may make sense to repost a clean version of the whole series.

Of course, if it's one or two patches out of 15, updated half an hour after
the previous version went out, or if there's repeated iteration on a subset
of the patchset (especially if the patchset is a loosely-related
collection), then it's reasonable to just post what changed.  I think the
cases where a full repost helps are not that rare, though.

-Scott