[U-Boot] [RFC] Kconfig: MAINTAINERS file or not?

[Masahiro Yamada]

Hi Wolfgang,


On Mon, 28 Apr 2014 22:41:07 +0200
Wolfgang Denk <wd at denx.de> wrote:

> Dear Masahiro,
> 
> In message <20140428185854.B2B8.AA925319 at jp.panasonic.com> you wrote:
> > 
> > Before I send Kconfig series v2,
> > please let me cofirm our approach of maintainers info.
> 
> Thanks for all your patience when dealing with all these apparently
> simple things that nevertheless take so much time and nerves to
> decide.
> 
> > Instead, MAINTAINERS file as in Linux Kernel was proposed.
> > (And the patch series by Daniel is already on Patchwork.)
> > http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/340546/
> > But Wolfgang (and Albert) disagreed with it.
> > 
> > In Kconfig v1 series, I put maintainers info and board status
> > in board/*/*/Kconfig as non-user-editable settings:
> > http://patchwork.ozlabs.org/patch/342089/
> 
> I find myself in the difficult situation that I'm not really happy
> with either of these approaches, but then I don't have any better
> solution to suggest.  I think I find the board/*/*/Kconfig a bit
> better.
> 
> > But I am not sure if this is a good idea.
> > (At least, it is dirty.)
> 
> Could you please explain why you think so?

CONFIG_BOARD_MAINTAINER is not referenced from anywhere.
It is written just for a record.
It's nothing more than a comment.

In my option, a plain text like boards.cfg or MAINTAINERS
might be more suitable for that kind of information.

Even if somebody adds a new board and makes a typo error,
for example, "config BOARD_MAINTANER", 
no error is reported. This is a mistake hard to find.

Another reason why I think a platin text is more suitable
is that some maintainers' name include quoatations and
they must be escaped.

Please notice this entry in board/dave/PPChameleonEVB/Kconfig:

config BOARD_MAINTAINER
	string
	default "Andrea \"llandre\" Marson <andrea.marson at dave-tech.it>"

Does this look strange?
But the back-slashes before quotations are necessary
to aviod Kconfig error.



> > In v2, I will drop maintainers info and board status from Kconfig
> > and leave them to Daniel's patch.
> 
> Hm... :-(
> 
> I hope others will provide more feedback - I'd be seriously unhappy if
> this decision was based only on gut feelings like mine...

Yes.
We must make a decision.
But this decision is difficult.


Best Regards
Masahiro Yamada