What to do when your patch gets ignored

[Andrea Tomassetti]

I'm writing here as a last resort in the hope that someone can,
kindly, help me understand what I'm doing wrong and why I'm being
ignored. Let's start from the beginning:

On March 8th, I sent my very first patch "[PATCH] bcache: Use bcache
without formatting existing device" to the linux-bcache mailing list.
I was very excited to finally contribute to the Linux kernel. After
just one day I received very positive feedback (unfortunately not from
the maintainer) and I followed up the same day; fulfilling the
requests.

On March 10th, I submitted the third version of my patch with fixes of
some warnings reported by the "kernel test robot". No replies from any
of the maintainers.

On March 22nd, I sent a kind ping: I got no replies from any of the maintainers.

On March 28th, I sent the 4th version of the patch.

On April 21st, I sent a kind ping replying to my last patch message,
asking for *any* feedback: I still haven't received any reply.

I fully understand that it's almost certainly my fault. Should I have
sent a RFC instead of sending a PATCH? I really don't know and the
worst part is that I will never know unless someone responds to me.
I'm willing to learn and ready to take accountability for my mistakes
but being ignored prevents me from doing so.

The linux-bcache mailing list has zero-to-little activity, so I don't
think that my multiple emails got lost and on the other hand it's very
difficult to help the maintainer with other patch requests, because
there are so few of them (I read this could be a way to encourage the
maintainer to respond to your other requests).

Should I just give up?
Should I resend my PATCH as RFC and hope for the best?

I'm open to suggestions.

Thank you very much in advance,
Andrea

-- 







The contents of this email are confidential. If the reader of this 
message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any 
dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly 
prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify 
us immediately by replying to this message and deleting it from your 
computer. Thank you. Devo, Inc; arco at devo.com <mailto:arco at devo.com>; 
255 
Main St Suite 702, Cambridge MA USA 02142 
Calle Estébanez Calderón 3-5, 
5th Floor Madrid, Spain 28020