linux-stable/Documentation/riscv/patch-acceptance.rst
Paul Walmsley 0e194d9da1 Documentation: riscv: add patch acceptance guidelines
Formalize, in kernel documentation, the patch acceptance policy for
arch/riscv.  In summary, it states that as maintainers, we plan to
only accept patches for new modules or extensions that have been
frozen or ratified by the RISC-V Foundation.

We've been following these guidelines for the past few months.  In the
meantime, we've received quite a bit of feedback that it would be
helpful to have these guidelines formally documented.

Based on a suggestion from Matthew Wilcox, we also add a link to this
file to Documentation/process/index.rst, to make this document easier
to find.  The format of this document has also been changed to align
to the format outlined in the maintainer entry profiles, in accordance
with comments from Jon Corbet and Dan Williams.

Signed-off-by: Paul Walmsley <paul.walmsley@sifive.com>
Reviewed-by: Palmer Dabbelt <palmerdabbelt@google.com>
Cc: Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@dabbelt.com>
Cc: Albert Ou <aou@eecs.berkeley.edu>
Cc: Krste Asanovic <krste@berkeley.edu>
Cc: Andrew Waterman <waterman@eecs.berkeley.edu>
Cc: Matthew Wilcox <willy@infradead.org>
Cc: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
2020-01-04 21:49:01 -08:00

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.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
arch/riscv maintenance guidelines for developers
================================================
Overview
--------
The RISC-V instruction set architecture is developed in the open:
in-progress drafts are available for all to review and to experiment
with implementations. New module or extension drafts can change
during the development process - sometimes in ways that are
incompatible with previous drafts. This flexibility can present a
challenge for RISC-V Linux maintenance. Linux maintainers disapprove
of churn, and the Linux development process prefers well-reviewed and
tested code over experimental code. We wish to extend these same
principles to the RISC-V-related code that will be accepted for
inclusion in the kernel.
Submit Checklist Addendum
-------------------------
We'll only accept patches for new modules or extensions if the
specifications for those modules or extensions are listed as being
"Frozen" or "Ratified" by the RISC-V Foundation. (Developers may, of
course, maintain their own Linux kernel trees that contain code for
any draft extensions that they wish.)
Additionally, the RISC-V specification allows implementors to create
their own custom extensions. These custom extensions aren't required
to go through any review or ratification process by the RISC-V
Foundation. To avoid the maintenance complexity and potential
performance impact of adding kernel code for implementor-specific
RISC-V extensions, we'll only to accept patches for extensions that
have been officially frozen or ratified by the RISC-V Foundation.
(Implementors, may, of course, maintain their own Linux kernel trees
containing code for any custom extensions that they wish.)