PaReD: a patch relations detector for patchwork

[Daniel Axtens]

Hi all,

I have written the simplest patch relation detector that might possibly
work as an API client. It is running against the patchwork and
linuxppc-dev projects on patchwork.ozlabs.org.

It currently detects mails with identical subjects (after prefixes are
removed) within a 180 day window. This is not a very sophisticated
matching system, but given that it's an API client and not in the core,
I'm much happier to experiment and build up sophistication as and when
it's needed.

You can get the code at https://github.com/daxtens/pw-pared . I'm using
the same license as Patchwork, for a number of reasons, but in part
because we may one day want to migrate the functionality into the
patchwork core. Patches are welcome.

You can see some examples of where PaReD has set up meaningful relations
at:

 - https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/linuxppc-dev/patch/20210802073929.907431-2-kjain@linux.ibm.com/
 - https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/patchwork/patch/20210823182833.3976100-6-raxel@google.com/

Some very obvious things that doing this has exposed:

 - the relations display should show the status of each related patch
   (e.g. New, Superseded, Accepted)

 - Series relations would make a lot of sense - probably even more sense
   from a human point of view - and we should probably build those at
   some point.

 - PaReD requires an API token for a maintainer account (much like for
   pushing checks) which is annoying and one day we should sort out
   fine-grained permissions.

Ask your patchwork instance admin if a maintainer account for PaReD is
right for you!

Kind regards,
Daniel