Merge tag 'docs-5.10' of git://git.lwn.net/linux

Pull documentation updates from Jonathan Corbet:
 "As hoped, things calmed down for docs this cycle; fewer changes and
  almost no conflicts at all. This includes:

   - A reworked and expanded user-mode Linux document

   - Some simplifications and improvements for submitting-patches.rst

   - An emergency fix for (some) problems with Sphinx 3.x

   - Some welcome automarkup improvements to automatically generate
     cross-references to struct definitions and other documents

   - The usual collection of translation updates, typo fixes, etc"

* tag 'docs-5.10' of git://git.lwn.net/linux: (81 commits)
  gpiolib: Update indentation in driver.rst for code excerpts
  Documentation/admin-guide: tainted-kernels: Fix typo occured
  Documentation: better locations for sysfs-pci, sysfs-tagging
  docs: programming-languages: refresh blurb on clang support
  Documentation: kvm: fix a typo
  Documentation: Chinese translation of Documentation/arm64/amu.rst
  doc: zh_CN: index files in arm64 subdirectory
  mailmap: add entry for <mstarovoitov@marvell.com>
  doc: seq_file: clarify role of *pos in ->next()
  docs: trace: ring-buffer-design.rst: use the new SPDX tag
  Documentation: kernel-parameters: clarify "module." parameters
  Fix references to nommu-mmap.rst
  docs: rewrite admin-guide/sysctl/abi.rst
  docs: fb: Remove vesafb scrollback boot option
  docs: fb: Remove sstfb scrollback boot option
  docs: fb: Remove matroxfb scrollback boot option
  docs: fb: Remove framebuffer scrollback boot option
  docs: replace the old User Mode Linux HowTo with a new one
  Documentation/admin-guide: blockdev/ramdisk: remove use of "rdev"
  Documentation/admin-guide: README & svga: remove use of "rdev"
  ...

2 files changed, 51 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/maintainer/index.rst b/Documentation/maintainer/index.rst
index d904e74e1159..f0a60435b124 100644
--- a/Documentation/maintainer/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/maintainer/index.rst
@@ -13,4 +13,5 @@ additions to this manual.
    rebasing-and-merging
    pull-requests
    maintainer-entry-profile
+   modifying-patches
 
diff --git a/Documentation/maintainer/modifying-patches.rst b/Documentation/maintainer/modifying-patches.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..58385d2e8065
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/maintainer/modifying-patches.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+.. _modifyingpatches:
+
+Modifying Patches
+=================
+
+If you are a subsystem or branch maintainer, sometimes you need to slightly
+modify patches you receive in order to merge them, because the code is not
+exactly the same in your tree and the submitters'. If you stick strictly to
+rule (c) of the developers certificate of origin, you should ask the submitter
+to rediff, but this is a totally counter-productive waste of time and energy.
+Rule (b) allows you to adjust the code, but then it is very impolite to change
+one submitters code and make him endorse your bugs. To solve this problem, it
+is recommended that you add a line between the last Signed-off-by header and
+yours, indicating the nature of your changes. While there is nothing mandatory
+about this, it seems like prepending the description with your mail and/or
+name, all enclosed in square brackets, is noticeable enough to make it obvious
+that you are responsible for last-minute changes. Example::
+
+       Signed-off-by: Random J Developer <random@developer.example.org>
+       [lucky@maintainer.example.org: struct foo moved from foo.c to foo.h]
+       Signed-off-by: Lucky K Maintainer <lucky@maintainer.example.org>
+
+This practice is particularly helpful if you maintain a stable branch and
+want at the same time to credit the author, track changes, merge the fix,
+and protect the submitter from complaints. Note that under no circumstances
+can you change the author's identity (the From header), as it is the one
+which appears in the changelog.
+
+Special note to back-porters: It seems to be a common and useful practice
+to insert an indication of the origin of a patch at the top of the commit
+message (just after the subject line) to facilitate tracking. For instance,
+here's what we see in a 3.x-stable release::
+
+  Date:   Tue Oct 7 07:26:38 2014 -0400
+
+    libata: Un-break ATA blacklist
+
+    commit 1c40279960bcd7d52dbdf1d466b20d24b99176c8 upstream.
+
+And here's what might appear in an older kernel once a patch is backported::
+
+    Date:   Tue May 13 22:12:27 2008 +0200
+
+        wireless, airo: waitbusy() won't delay
+
+        [backport of 2.6 commit b7acbdfbd1f277c1eb23f344f899cfa4cd0bf36a]
+
+Whatever the format, this information provides a valuable help to people
+tracking your trees, and to people trying to troubleshoot bugs in your
+tree.