From: Kristoffer Haugsbakk Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2025 21:58:09 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] SubmittingPatches: extend release-notes experiment to topic names Message-ID: <75d82bb5-f2ce-449b-8387-fc1d63ce4e78@app.fastmail.com> In-Reply-To: On Wed, Oct 8, 2025, at 23:20, Taylor Blau wrote: >[snip] > I wrote it this way to account for individuals listed under the > Co-authored-by trailer. I'm not entirely sure that I'm following the > latter half of this sentence. Could you clarify what you mean? > Sorry. I tried to say that: I don’t think “primary” makes it more clear that one should use the Git author compared to just “author”. >> But it was noted[1] that the-topic-summary doesn’t seem to have been >> used much. That’s not surprising given that the instruction makes >> the-topic-summary blend in with the rest of the cover letter and doesn’t >> signal that the author intends for the first paragraph to be used as >> such. This patch shares the same problem. > > That's fair, though I admittedly dislike the idea of prescribing a > format for the cover letter. It should be clear to those (such as the > maintainer) who are reading the cover letter closely whether or not the > first paragraph (or two) are meant to be used as the topic name/summary. > I think saying that the cover letter should start with them is just as much of a prescription as saying that they should be marked with some paragraph-prefix (and be somewhere in the cover letter). Some people might prefer to start the letter with what they think are important call-out information and get to the topic summary later. For example. >[snip]