Linux kernel review tags (Re: [PATCH 0/3] Fix Thumb-2 undef handling for mixed-arch kernels)

[Nicolas Pitre]

On Wed, 17 Aug 2011, Dave Martin wrote:

> Acked-by = This patch is definitely right, or I fully agree with the
> 	patch and trust the author's judgement ("I will share
> 	responsibility for the correctness and appropriateness of this
> 	patch").  This implies Reviewed-by.
> 	Normally an ack shouldn't
> 	get added unless the acker is confident that the patch is
> 	adequately tested (where the level of testing deemed adequate
> 	depends on the complexity of the patch)  Again, this may rely on
> 	judgement of the comptence of the author and the other
> 	reviewers.
> 
> Reviewed-by = This patch looks correct and appropriate and I judge it
> 	ok to merge, but I assume the author knows what they're
> 	doing, and I don't necessarily take responsibility for the
> 	change.

I think some aspects of the above two are mixed up.

Normally, ACK == acknowledgement i.e. "I conceptually agree with the 
patch", but that doesn't necessarily mean that it was reviewed 
thoroughly.  In other words, this quite matches your definition, but 
does not imply a Reviewed-by, and that assumes the author knows what 
they're doing.

Reviewed-by means that you did review the patch content in details, 
whether or not the author knows what they're doing.  A Reviewed-by 
obviously implies an Acked-by.


Nicolas