Conceptual
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RFC Patches, Versioned Series and Cover Letters

A change rarely goes in on the first try. You can mark an early draft as a request for comments to ask about the approach before polishing it, and each revision afterwards is numbered so reviewers know what they are reading. A series of several patches gets a cover letter explaining the whole idea and what changed since last time. Resending without that context makes reviewers redo work they already did.

Questions this Concept answers

  • Why does a revised series include a changelog saying what changed since the previous version?