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This is an extended document intended to help interested developers, their managers, and their employers work with the kernel development process. This work was supported by the Linux Foundation. Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
203 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
203 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
6: FOLLOWTHROUGH
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At this point, you have followed the guidelines given so far and, with the
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addition of your own engineering skills, have posted a perfect series of
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patches. One of the biggest mistakes that even experienced kernel
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developers can make is to conclude that their work is now done. In truth,
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posting patches indicates a transition into the next stage of the process,
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with, possibly, quite a bit of work yet to be done.
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It is a rare patch which is so good at its first posting that there is no
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room for improvement. The kernel development process recognizes this fact,
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and, as a result, is heavily oriented toward the improvement of posted
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code. You, as the author of that code, will be expected to work with the
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kernel community to ensure that your code is up to the kernel's quality
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standards. A failure to participate in this process is quite likely to
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prevent the inclusion of your patches into the mainline.
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6.1: WORKING WITH REVIEWERS
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A patch of any significance will result in a number of comments from other
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developers as they review the code. Working with reviewers can be, for
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many developers, the most intimidating part of the kernel development
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process. Life can be made much easier, though, if you keep a few things in
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mind:
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- If you have explained your patch well, reviewers will understand its
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value and why you went to the trouble of writing it. But that value
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will not keep them from asking a fundamental question: what will it be
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like to maintain a kernel with this code in it five or ten years later?
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Many of the changes you may be asked to make - from coding style tweaks
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to substantial rewrites - come from the understanding that Linux will
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still be around and under development a decade from now.
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- Code review is hard work, and it is a relatively thankless occupation;
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people remember who wrote kernel code, but there is little lasting fame
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for those who reviewed it. So reviewers can get grumpy, especially when
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they see the same mistakes being made over and over again. If you get a
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review which seems angry, insulting, or outright offensive, resist the
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impulse to respond in kind. Code review is about the code, not about
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the people, and code reviewers are not attacking you personally.
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- Similarly, code reviewers are not trying to promote their employers'
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agendas at the expense of your own. Kernel developers often expect to
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be working on the kernel years from now, but they understand that their
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employer could change. They truly are, almost without exception,
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working toward the creation of the best kernel they can; they are not
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trying to create discomfort for their employers' competitors.
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What all of this comes down to is that, when reviewers send you comments,
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you need to pay attention to the technical observations that they are
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making. Do not let their form of expression or your own pride keep that
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from happening. When you get review comments on a patch, take the time to
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understand what the reviewer is trying to say. If possible, fix the things
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that the reviewer is asking you to fix. And respond back to the reviewer:
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thank them, and describe how you will answer their questions.
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Note that you do not have to agree with every change suggested by
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reviewers. If you believe that the reviewer has misunderstood your code,
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explain what is really going on. If you have a technical objection to a
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suggested change, describe it and justify your solution to the problem. If
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your explanations make sense, the reviewer will accept them. Should your
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explanation not prove persuasive, though, especially if others start to
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agree with the reviewer, take some time to think things over again. It can
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be easy to become blinded by your own solution to a problem to the point
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that you don't realize that something is fundamentally wrong or, perhaps,
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you're not even solving the right problem.
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One fatal mistake is to ignore review comments in the hope that they will
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go away. They will not go away. If you repost code without having
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responded to the comments you got the time before, you're likely to find
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that your patches go nowhere.
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Speaking of reposting code: please bear in mind that reviewers are not
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going to remember all the details of the code you posted the last time
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around. So it is always a good idea to remind reviewers of previously
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raised issues and how you dealt with them; the patch changelog is a good
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place for this kind of information. Reviewers should not have to search
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through list archives to familiarize themselves with what was said last
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time; if you help them get a running start, they will be in a better mood
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when they revisit your code.
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What if you've tried to do everything right and things still aren't going
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anywhere? Most technical disagreements can be resolved through discussion,
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but there are times when somebody simply has to make a decision. If you
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honestly believe that this decision is going against you wrongly, you can
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always try appealing to a higher power. As of this writing, that higher
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power tends to be Andrew Morton. Andrew has a great deal of respect in the
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kernel development community; he can often unjam a situation which seems to
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be hopelessly blocked. Appealing to Andrew should not be done lightly,
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though, and not before all other alternatives have been explored. And bear
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in mind, of course, that he may not agree with you either.
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6.2: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
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If a patch is considered to be a good thing to add to the kernel, and once
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most of the review issues have been resolved, the next step is usually
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entry into a subsystem maintainer's tree. How that works varies from one
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subsystem to the next; each maintainer has his or her own way of doing
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things. In particular, there may be more than one tree - one, perhaps,
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dedicated to patches planned for the next merge window, and another for
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longer-term work.
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For patches applying to areas for which there is no obvious subsystem tree
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(memory management patches, for example), the default tree often ends up
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being -mm. Patches which affect multiple subsystems can also end up going
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through the -mm tree.
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Inclusion into a subsystem tree can bring a higher level of visibility to a
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patch. Now other developers working with that tree will get the patch by
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default. Subsystem trees typically feed into -mm and linux-next as well,
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making their contents visible to the development community as a whole. At
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this point, there's a good chance that you will get more comments from a
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new set of reviewers; these comments need to be answered as in the previous
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round.
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What may also happen at this point, depending on the nature of your patch,
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is that conflicts with work being done by others turn up. In the worst
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case, heavy patch conflicts can result in some work being put on the back
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burner so that the remaining patches can be worked into shape and merged.
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Other times, conflict resolution will involve working with the other
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developers and, possibly, moving some patches between trees to ensure that
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everything applies cleanly. This work can be a pain, but count your
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blessings: before the advent of the linux-next tree, these conflicts often
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only turned up during the merge window and had to be addressed in a hurry.
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Now they can be resolved at leisure, before the merge window opens.
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Some day, if all goes well, you'll log on and see that your patch has been
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merged into the mainline kernel. Congratulations! Once the celebration is
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complete (and you have added yourself to the MAINTAINERS file), though, it
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is worth remembering an important little fact: the job still is not done.
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Merging into the mainline brings its own challenges.
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To begin with, the visibility of your patch has increased yet again. There
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may be a new round of comments from developers who had not been aware of
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the patch before. It may be tempting to ignore them, since there is no
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longer any question of your code being merged. Resist that temptation,
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though; you still need to be responsive to developers who have questions or
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suggestions.
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More importantly, though: inclusion into the mainline puts your code into
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the hands of a much larger group of testers. Even if you have contributed
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a driver for hardware which is not yet available, you will be surprised by
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how many people will build your code into their kernels. And, of course,
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where there are testers, there will be bug reports.
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The worst sort of bug reports are regressions. If your patch causes a
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regression, you'll find an uncomfortable number of eyes upon you;
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regressions need to be fixed as soon as possible. If you are unwilling or
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unable to fix the regression (and nobody else does it for you), your patch
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will almost certainly be removed during the stabilization period. Beyond
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negating all of the work you have done to get your patch into the mainline,
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having a patch pulled as the result of a failure to fix a regression could
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well make it harder for you to get work merged in the future.
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After any regressions have been dealt with, there may be other, ordinary
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bugs to deal with. The stabilization period is your best opportunity to
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fix these bugs and ensure that your code's debut in a mainline kernel
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release is as solid as possible. So, please, answer bug reports, and fix
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the problems if at all possible. That's what the stabilization period is
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for; you can start creating cool new patches once any problems with the old
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ones have been taken care of.
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And don't forget that there are other milestones which may also create bug
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reports: the next mainline stable release, when prominent distributors pick
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up a version of the kernel containing your patch, etc. Continuing to
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respond to these reports is a matter of basic pride in your work. If that
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is insufficient motivation, though, it's also worth considering that the
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development community remembers developers who lose interest in their code
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after it's merged. The next time you post a patch, they will be evaluating
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it with the assumption that you will not be around to maintain it
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afterward.
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6.3: OTHER THINGS THAT CAN HAPPEN
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One day, you may open your mail client and see that somebody has mailed you
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a patch to your code. That is one of the advantages of having your code
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out there in the open, after all. If you agree with the patch, you can
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either forward it on to the subsystem maintainer (be sure to include a
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proper From: line so that the attribution is correct, and add a signoff of
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your own), or send an Acked-by: response back and let the original poster
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send it upward.
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If you disagree with the patch, send a polite response explaining why. If
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possible, tell the author what changes need to be made to make the patch
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acceptable to you. There is a certain resistance to merging patches which
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are opposed by the author and maintainer of the code, but it only goes so
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far. If you are seen as needlessly blocking good work, those patches will
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eventually flow around you and get into the mainline anyway. In the Linux
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kernel, nobody has absolute veto power over any code. Except maybe Linus.
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On very rare occasion, you may see something completely different: another
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developer posts a different solution to your problem. At that point,
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chances are that one of the two patches will not be merged, and "mine was
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here first" is not considered to be a compelling technical argument. If
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somebody else's patch displaces yours and gets into the mainline, there is
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really only one way to respond: be pleased that your problem got solved and
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get on with your work. Having one's work shoved aside in this manner can
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be hurtful and discouraging, but the community will remember your reaction
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long after they have forgotten whose patch actually got merged.
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