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

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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 [1]
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>

...

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Krzysztof Kozlowski 2026-05-20 17:48:47 +02:00 • committed by Jonathan Corbet

parent e27108800b

commit 48c3876a6a

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Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst

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