<story><title>“The &apos;s&apos; is sad”: 4-year-old submits Linux kernel doc patch (2014)</title><url>https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=690b0543a813b0ecfc51b0374c0ce6c8275435f0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gowld</author><text>Linus on trivial patches:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lkml.org&amp;#x2F;lkml&amp;#x2F;2004&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;255&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lkml.org&amp;#x2F;lkml&amp;#x2F;2004&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;255&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[ Linux-kernel added back into the cc, because I actually think this is 
  important. ]&lt;p&gt;On Tue, 21 Dec 2004, Jesper Juhl wrote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Should I just stop attemting to make these trivial cleanups&amp;#x2F;fixes&amp;#x2F;whatever 
 patches? are they more noice than gain? am I being a pain to more skilled 
 people on lkml or can you all live with my, sometimes quite ignorant, 
 patches?
 I do try to learn from the feedback I get, and I like to think that my 
 patches are gradually getting a bit better, but if I&amp;#x27;m more of a bother 
 than a help I might as well stop.&lt;p&gt;To me, the biggest thing with small patches is not necessarily the patch 
itself. I think that much more important than the patch is the fact that 
people get used to the notion that they can change the kernel - not just 
on an intellectual level (&amp;quot;I understand that the GPL means that I have the 
right to change my kernel&amp;quot;), but on a more practical level (&amp;quot;Hey, I did 
that small change&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;And whether it ends up being the right thing or not, that&amp;#x27;s how everybody
starts out. It&amp;#x27;s simply not possible to &amp;quot;get into&amp;quot; the kernel without
starting out small, and making mistakes. So I very much encourage it...&lt;p&gt;So please don&amp;#x27;t stop. Yes, those trivial patches _are_ a bother. Damn, 
they are _horrible_. But at the same time, the devil is in the detail, and 
they are needed in the long run. Both the patches themselves, and the 
people that grew up on them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mxstbr</author><text>This is such a great comment and very true. Looking at the speed and attitude that maintainers handle trivial PRs with can act as an indicator of the project health and will definitely make it more inviting for new contributors!</text></comment>
<story><title>“The &apos;s&apos; is sad”: 4-year-old submits Linux kernel doc patch (2014)</title><url>https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=690b0543a813b0ecfc51b0374c0ce6c8275435f0</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gowld</author><text>Linus on trivial patches:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lkml.org&amp;#x2F;lkml&amp;#x2F;2004&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;255&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;lkml.org&amp;#x2F;lkml&amp;#x2F;2004&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;255&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[ Linux-kernel added back into the cc, because I actually think this is 
  important. ]&lt;p&gt;On Tue, 21 Dec 2004, Jesper Juhl wrote:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Should I just stop attemting to make these trivial cleanups&amp;#x2F;fixes&amp;#x2F;whatever 
 patches? are they more noice than gain? am I being a pain to more skilled 
 people on lkml or can you all live with my, sometimes quite ignorant, 
 patches?
 I do try to learn from the feedback I get, and I like to think that my 
 patches are gradually getting a bit better, but if I&amp;#x27;m more of a bother 
 than a help I might as well stop.&lt;p&gt;To me, the biggest thing with small patches is not necessarily the patch 
itself. I think that much more important than the patch is the fact that 
people get used to the notion that they can change the kernel - not just 
on an intellectual level (&amp;quot;I understand that the GPL means that I have the 
right to change my kernel&amp;quot;), but on a more practical level (&amp;quot;Hey, I did 
that small change&amp;quot;).&lt;p&gt;And whether it ends up being the right thing or not, that&amp;#x27;s how everybody
starts out. It&amp;#x27;s simply not possible to &amp;quot;get into&amp;quot; the kernel without
starting out small, and making mistakes. So I very much encourage it...&lt;p&gt;So please don&amp;#x27;t stop. Yes, those trivial patches _are_ a bother. Damn, 
they are _horrible_. But at the same time, the devil is in the detail, and 
they are needed in the long run. Both the patches themselves, and the 
people that grew up on them.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>antirez</author><text>I agree on the general concept of your post, however I cannot observe, at least for the things I maintain, that there is this pattern of &amp;quot;people starting small&amp;quot;. At least not small in the sense of trivial changes. They maybe start submitting a small PR but that is most of the times already at the level of the contribution that they&amp;#x27;ll make in the future. So people that will become core contributors will send a small PR with a core change, showing already that they can understand the core of the system. However the open source movement cannot only optimize for the raw code output. The &amp;quot;I changed this&amp;quot; feeling is also great for users to realize that there is space for everybody.</text></comment>