Merge branch 'maintainer-profile' into docs-next

Patch series from Dan Williams:

At last years Plumbers Conference I proposed the Maintainer Entry
Profile as a document that a maintainer can provid

Merge branch 'maintainer-profile' into docs-next

Patch series from Dan Williams:

At last years Plumbers Conference I proposed the Maintainer Entry
Profile as a document that a maintainer can provide to set contributor
expectations and provide fodder for a discussion between maintainers
about the merits of different maintainer policies.

For those that did not attend, the goal of the Maintainer Entry Profile
is to provide contributors documentation of patch submission
considerations that may vary by subsystem. The session introduction was:

The first rule of kernel maintenance is that there are no hard and
fast rules. That state of affairs is both a blessing and a curse. It
has served the community well to be adaptable to the different
people and different problem spaces that inhabit the kernel
community. However, that variability also leads to inconsistent
experiences for contributors, little to no guidance for new
contributors, and unnecessary stress on current maintainers.

To be clear, the proposed document does not impose or suggest new rules.
Instead it provides an outlet to document the existing unwritten
policies in effect for a given subsystem. Over time the hope is that
some of this variability can be up-levelled to new global process
policy, but in the meantime it provides relief for communicating the
guidelines that are being imposed on contributors.

[jc: resolved merge conflicts with the MAINTAINERS file, added a patch
to fix up various RST issues, and added a TOC section for the
profiles.]

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docs: fix up the maintainer profile document

Add blank lines where needed to get the document to render properly. Also
add a TOC of existing profiles just so that the nvdimm profile is linked
into

docs: fix up the maintainer profile document

Add blank lines where needed to get the document to render properly. Also
add a TOC of existing profiles just so that the nvdimm profile is linked
into the toctree, is discoverable, and doesn't generate a warning.

Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>

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Maintainer Handbook: Maintainer Entry Profile

As presented at the 2018 Linux Plumbers conference [1], the Maintainer
Entry Profile (formerly Subsystem Profile) is proposed as a way to reduce
frictio

Maintainer Handbook: Maintainer Entry Profile

As presented at the 2018 Linux Plumbers conference [1], the Maintainer
Entry Profile (formerly Subsystem Profile) is proposed as a way to reduce
friction between committers and maintainers and encourage conversations
amongst maintainers about common best practices. While coding-style,
submit-checklist, and submitting-drivers lay out some common expectations
there remain local customs and maintainer preferences that vary by
subsystem.

The profile contains documentation of some of the common policy
questions a contributor might have that are local to the subsystem /
device-driver, special considerations for the subsystem, or other
guidelines that are otherwise not covered by the top-level process
documents.

The initial and hopefully non-controversial headings in the profile are:

Overview:
General introduction to how the subsystem operates

Submit Checklist Addendum:
Mechanical items that gate submission staging, or other requirements
that gate patch acceptance.

Key Cycle Dates:
- Last -rc for new feature submissions: Expected lead time for submissions
- Last -rc to merge features: Deadline for merge decisions

Resubmit Cadence: When and preferred method to follow up with the
maintainer

Note that coding style guidelines are explicitly left out of this list.

See Documentation/maintainer/maintainer-entry-profile.rst for more details,
and a follow-on example profile for the libnvdimm subsystem.

[1]: https://linuxplumbersconf.org/event/2/contributions/59/

Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab@kernel.org>
Cc: Steve French <stfrench@microsoft.com>
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: Tobin C. Harding <me@tobin.cc>
Cc: Olof Johansson <olof@lixom.net>
Cc: Martin K. Petersen <martin.petersen@oracle.com>
Cc: Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@ffwll.ch>
Cc: Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>
Cc: Dmitry Vyukov <dvyukov@google.com>
Cc: Alexandre Belloni <alexandre.belloni@bootlin.com>
Cc: Paul Walmsley <paul.walmsley@sifive.com>
Signed-off-by: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/157462919309.1729495.10585699280061787229.stgit@dwillia2-desk3.amr.corp.intel.com
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>

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