[PATCH 1/2] MAINTAINERS: document the branch in git T: entries

[Matthias Goergens]

T: entries have named a branch after the repository URL since commit
a1aa5a770dc3 ("MAINTAINERS: update hwmon subsystem git trees"), and
109 of the 846 git T: lines do so today.  Commit 083bf9c56d06
("get_maintainer: add more --self-test options") taught
get_maintainer.pl to parse that optional branch and check it with git
ls-remote.  The preamble, however, still describes T: as it did after
commit 50306fb5398f ("[PATCH] Clarify T: field in MAINTAINERS"), as
"tree type and location", and does not mention the branch.

Documentation/process/submitting-patches.rst sends contributors to the
T: entry to find the tree to prepare patches against.  When
development happens on a branch other than the repository's HEAD, a
branch-less entry points them at the wrong tree; on 2026-09-24, 173 of
the 273 repositories named without a branch had a HEAD that mainline
already contained.

Document the existing practice and say when to name a branch.

Suggested-by: Theodore Ts'o <tytso@xxxxxxx>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/all/arSMwd1bGO1vrif-@xxxxxxx/
Signed-off-by: Matthias Goergens <matthias.goergens@xxxxxxxxx>
---
Ted, as I said in my reply on the ext4 patch
(https://lore.kernel.org/all/20260924033200.3615554-1-matthias.goergens@xxxxxxxxx/),
I'm sending only a few of the per-tree T: patches for now, and would
value your view before sending the rest.

 MAINTAINERS | 2 ++
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)

diff --git a/MAINTAINERS b/MAINTAINERS
index cc3cae2e378b..6edc17d66b44 100644
--- a/MAINTAINERS
+++ b/MAINTAINERS
@@ -30,6 +30,8 @@ Descriptions of section entries and preferred order
        See Documentation/maintainer/maintainer-entry-profile.rst for details.
 	T: *SCM* tree type and location.
 	   Type is one of: git, hg, quilt, stgit, topgit
+	   A git entry may name a branch after the URL; name one when
+	   development does not happen on the repository's HEAD.
 	F: *Files* and directories wildcard patterns.
 	   A trailing slash includes all files and subdirectory files.
 	   F:	drivers/net/	all files in and below drivers/net

base-commit: 40288c9206c17eb66a603262e06a58d300d0f279
-- 
2.55.0