docs: submitting-patches: Clarify that "reviewer" is a person

Common understanding of word "Reviewer" is: a person performing a review
work [1]. Tools are not persons, thus cannot be reviewers in this term.
Also tools cannot make statements and cannot take responsibility for the
review.

Our docs already clearly mark that "Reviewed-by" must come from a
person:

 - "By offering my Reviewed-by: tag, I state that:"

   Usage of first person "I" and word "state"

 - "A Reviewed-by tag is *a statement of opinion* that the patch is an
    appropriate modification of the kernel without any remaining serious"

   Only a person can make a statement of opinion.

 - "Any interested reviewer (who has done the work) can offer a
   Reviewed-by"

   A person can offer a tag thus above does not grant the tool
   permission to offer a tag.

However this might not be enough, so let's clarify that only a person
with a known identity can state the "Reviewer's statement of oversight".

Link: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/reviewer
Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@kernel.org>
Cc: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Cc: David Hildenbrand <david@kernel.org>
Cc: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Acked-by: Vlastimil Babka (SUSE) <vbabka@kernel.org>
Acked-by: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@infradead.org>
Reviewed-by: Mark Brown <broonie@kernel.org>
Acked-by: David Hildenbrand (Arm) <david@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski@oss.qualcomm.com>
Reviewed-by: Mauro Carvalho Chehab <mchehab+huawei@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Message-ID: <20260520154846.162170-2-krzysztof.kozlowski@oss.qualcomm.com>

diff --git a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
index d7290e208e72df9d6269e38ff5bcadc7a38c337b..cc6a1f73d7f20d6493ff67b7b1995b534d1cd58c 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst
@@ -581,12 +581,12 @@ By offering my Reviewed-by: tag, I state that:
 
 A Reviewed-by tag is a statement of opinion that the patch is an
 appropriate modification of the kernel without any remaining serious
-technical issues.  Any interested reviewer (who has done the work) can
-offer a Reviewed-by tag for a patch.  This tag serves to give credit to
-reviewers and to inform maintainers of the degree of review which has been
-done on the patch.  Reviewed-by: tags, when supplied by reviewers known to
-understand the subject area and to perform thorough reviews, will normally
-increase the likelihood of your patch getting into the kernel.
+technical issues.  Any interested reviewer (who has done the work and is a
+person with known identity) can offer a Reviewed-by tag for a patch.  This tag
+serves to give credit to reviewers and to inform maintainers of the degree of
+review which has been done on the patch.  Reviewed-by: tags, when supplied by
+reviewers known to understand the subject area and to perform thorough reviews,
+will normally increase the likelihood of your patch getting into the kernel.
 
 Both Tested-by and Reviewed-by tags, once received on mailing list from tester
 or reviewer, should be added by author to the applicable patches when sending