Submitting patches

[Simon Glass]

+Tom Rini

Hi Martin,

On Thu, 4 Aug 2022 at 00:22, Martin Bonner <martingreybeard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 3 Aug 2022 at 19:14, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Martin,
>>
>> On Wed, 3 Aug 2022 at 04:05, Martin Bonner <martingreybeard at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > I and my colleagues have a number of patches we would like to
>> > contribute back to the community, however for various reasons
>> > (principally operating inside corporate firewalls), it isn't possible
>> > to use `git send-email`, and I haven't been able to create a plain
>> > text email which is acceptable to `git am`.
>>
>> The workaround here is perhaps to create a gmail address for
>> submissions. I think quite a few people do that.
>
> Interesting.  I am using gmail (because I assumed that the corporate email would mangle stuff), but I can't get it to work.
>
> Surprisingly, I think that Office365 email is actually _more_ compliant with the way the u-boot process works.

That's good to hear!

In my .gitconfig I have:

[sendemail]
               smtpserver = smtp.gmail.com
        smtpserverport = 587
        smtpencryption = tls
        smtpuser = sjg at chromium.org
        smtppass = xxxx
        confirm = always

where xxxx is the long 'application-specific password' generated here:

https://myaccount.google.com/security  (click on 'App passwords')

>
>> But a firewall that
>> blocks 'git send-email' is not really compatible with open source
>> collaboration, so I'd encourage you to get the problem resolved.
>
>
> That's completely impossible.  Corporate IT will let us push patches upstream if we like, but they absolutely are not going to change their policies and infrastructure to let that happen.

Perhaps create an internal web page describing the problem and its
workarounds. Make sure your boss and everyone else knows the problem
and its impact on your work and ability to collaborate. Be specific
about what is actually blocking you and see if there is a simple
solution that doesn't affect security too much. Point people to your
page when they want to do the same thing.

>
> Be aware that plain text email is no longer something that it is safe to assume everyone has access to.  Obviously everyone actively involved in the development of u-boot has, but there are a number of potential developers who don't, and my sense is that that number is growing.  It won't put off people who are going to become core developers, but it will put off people who want to suggest a small improvement here, or fix an obscure bug there.

I wasn't aware of that. I do recall years ago an email system where
you had to use MS Word to edit your emails though!

>>
>>
>> >

>> > Is it possible to fork u-boot on Git[HL][au]b or similar hosting site,
>> > and then send an email to the list pointing at the commit?

U-Boot is on github, but it is a mirror.

I have thought about setting up gerrit service as I think it would be
convenient for reviews, but so far as I know it doesn't support larger
projects like U-Boot with multiple maintainers. I believe people have
worked on email integration, but I'm not sure how well it works. How
much time and effort are you willing to put into this?

Regards,
Simon