4 ms·

While I never submitted a patch personally, I had once conferred with some of the input devs to add a trackpad to the synaptics driver... they were queueing up

While I never submitted a patch personally, I had once conferred with some of the input devs to add a trackpad to the synaptics driver... they were queueing up an update to add other trackpads, and they said they would add mine... 5 years later, it's still not there. It was just a one-liner, and I'm not really sure why it never got added... On the other hand, I once ran into an issue with uboot where a bad update knocked out my emmc, usb and sata controllers... found an email address of someone developing the dtb files and got in touch with them, and it was fixed in under a week. At the end of the day, people are weird sometimes. I wish all the best for marcan.

naasking 2y ago
> 5 years later, it's still not there. It was just a one-liner, and I'm not really sure why it never got added. I think they expect people who want things to advocate harder than just mentioning it once. If no one brings it up again, then they assume that no one cares.
- harvey9 2y ago
  this seems very inefficient and the opposite of what I assumed. repeated requests take up time on both sides and are not a very good measure of how important something is.
  - dncornholio 2y ago
    it's not perfect but it works.
    - neoromantique 2y ago
      well, apparently it doesn't.
      - naasking 2y ago
        Well, apparently nobody even noticed for 5 years, so that's 5 years that nobody had to even think about that code.
        amatecha 2y ago
        Nah, people noticed, and then they thought "Linux always has these kind of issues, I'm going back to [whatever other OS]" because 99.9% of users will never even TRY to report a bug.
        samus 2y ago
        People just think "that's Linux, it's buggy and we have to live with it"
  - nicce 2y ago
    This is how the most of the open-source development works. There are many projects with thousands of issues and PRs. Those that will get most attention, typically gets prioritized.
    - stusmall 2y ago
      This is even how closed source development works. If you throw issues in a backlog and never follow up to advocate for it then it will never get done.
- mid-kid 2y ago
  why bother infering such intent when the obvious answer - that they simply forgot about it with no ill intentions - is right there?
  - naasking 2y ago
    Requiring people to advocate for their changes is not ill-intent. It handles all cases such as forgetting/missing a patch, and disagreement whether something is needed. The point is there's no system in place to track which patches "should ideally be included but weren't for some reason", it's up for the people who need them to push for them.
- adastra22 2y ago
  Quite the opposite. If you “pester” for something, they’ll explicitly reject it.
  - naasking 2y ago
    I didn't say pester, I said advocate for it.
    - adastra22 2y ago
      It's the same thing.
ogoffart 2y ago
I tried once to contribute a fix to be able to use the track-pad on my laptop many years ago. But it was not accepted as the maintainer claimed it was an problem in userspace that did not process out of order events correctly. Despite none of the other drivers sent the events out of order. I had no intention to fix the problem on X11 (the only userspace for this at the time), so I used the patched kernel driver locally until I stopped using that laptop. https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43591 https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43591 https://lore.kernel.org/all/1340829375-4995-1-git-send-email-ogoffart@woboq.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/all/1340829375-4995-1-git-send-email...
arp242 2y ago
People forget things etc. Should probably have just asked again, or sent a small one-line patch. It's "mention something on Slack" vs "creating a GitHub issue/PR"
- samus 2y ago
  Which sounds inefficient and exactly the sort of problem that doesn't happen with a Github issue/PR.
  - BlueTemplar 2y ago
    But Github, being a platform, is a nonstarter. Have there been any recent popular developments on a similar workflow that is as robust as e-mail ?
    - samus 2y ago
      They "just" need to settle on a platform. GitLab sounds good and is used by a lot of important Open Source projects.
      - BlueTemplar 2y ago
        Did you miss the part where being a platform was most of the issue ? I'm not sure how long GitLab can be trusted either, as well as git becoming a bit too synonymous with GitHub...
  - arp242 2y ago
    > exactly the sort of problem that doesn't happen with a Github issue/PR What? PRs or issues being forgotten happens all the time, especially for large projects.
    - samus 2y ago
      It would still be easier to track the progress (or lack thereof) with a proper ticketing system.
bsimpson 2y ago
FWIW, I have submitted a couple small patches to get the display and gamepad for my Lenovo Legion Go recognized correctly - probably similar levels of complexity to your change. One was to input and one was to display quirks. They did take months to finally land, and the whole process of getting my corp email address to be compatible with their email-based PR system was way more of a faff than it had any right to be, but they did land. You can install mainline Linux on a Legion Go now and the display and controller will behave as expected, out-of-the-box.
- Ecco 2y ago
  Thanks!

naasking 2y ago

> 5 years later, it's still not there. It was just a one-liner, and I'm not really sure why it never got added. I think they expect people who want things to advocate harder than just mentioning it once. If no one brings it up again, then they assume that no one cares.

harvey9 2y ago
this seems very inefficient and the opposite of what I assumed. repeated requests take up time on both sides and are not a very good measure of how important something is.
- dncornholio 2y ago
  it's not perfect but it works.
  - neoromantique 2y ago
    well, apparently it doesn't.
    - naasking 2y ago
      Well, apparently nobody even noticed for 5 years, so that's 5 years that nobody had to even think about that code.
      - amatecha 2y ago
        Nah, people noticed, and then they thought "Linux always has these kind of issues, I'm going back to [whatever other OS]" because 99.9% of users will never even TRY to report a bug.
      - samus 2y ago
        People just think "that's Linux, it's buggy and we have to live with it"
- nicce 2y ago
  This is how the most of the open-source development works. There are many projects with thousands of issues and PRs. Those that will get most attention, typically gets prioritized.
  - stusmall 2y ago
    This is even how closed source development works. If you throw issues in a backlog and never follow up to advocate for it then it will never get done.
mid-kid 2y ago
why bother infering such intent when the obvious answer - that they simply forgot about it with no ill intentions - is right there?
- naasking 2y ago
  Requiring people to advocate for their changes is not ill-intent. It handles all cases such as forgetting/missing a patch, and disagreement whether something is needed. The point is there's no system in place to track which patches "should ideally be included but weren't for some reason", it's up for the people who need them to push for them.
adastra22 2y ago
Quite the opposite. If you “pester” for something, they’ll explicitly reject it.
- naasking 2y ago
  I didn't say pester, I said advocate for it.
  - adastra22 2y ago
    It's the same thing.

ogoffart 2y ago

I tried once to contribute a fix to be able to use the track-pad on my laptop many years ago. But it was not accepted as the maintainer claimed it was an problem in userspace that did not process out of order events correctly. Despite none of the other drivers sent the events out of order. I had no intention to fix the problem on X11 (the only userspace for this at the time), so I used the patched kernel driver locally until I stopped using that laptop. https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43591 https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43591 https://lore.kernel.org/all/1340829375-4995-1-git-send-email-ogoffart@woboq.com/ https://lore.kernel.org/all/1340829375-4995-1-git-send-email...

arp242 2y ago

People forget things etc. Should probably have just asked again, or sent a small one-line patch. It's "mention something on Slack" vs "creating a GitHub issue/PR"

samus 2y ago
Which sounds inefficient and exactly the sort of problem that doesn't happen with a Github issue/PR.
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  But Github, being a platform, is a nonstarter. Have there been any recent popular developments on a similar workflow that is as robust as e-mail ?
  - samus 2y ago
    They "just" need to settle on a platform. GitLab sounds good and is used by a lot of important Open Source projects.
    - BlueTemplar 2y ago
      Did you miss the part where being a platform was most of the issue ? I'm not sure how long GitLab can be trusted either, as well as git becoming a bit too synonymous with GitHub...
- arp242 2y ago
  > exactly the sort of problem that doesn't happen with a Github issue/PR What? PRs or issues being forgotten happens all the time, especially for large projects.
  - samus 2y ago
    It would still be easier to track the progress (or lack thereof) with a proper ticketing system.

bsimpson 2y ago

FWIW, I have submitted a couple small patches to get the display and gamepad for my Lenovo Legion Go recognized correctly - probably similar levels of complexity to your change. One was to input and one was to display quirks. They did take months to finally land, and the whole process of getting my corp email address to be compatible with their email-based PR system was way more of a faff than it had any right to be, but they did land. You can install mainline Linux on a Legion Go now and the display and controller will behave as expected, out-of-the-box.

Ecco 2y ago
Thanks!