I am only guessing here, but I assume it's so the content of the mailing list archive remains. If a linked website goes down or changes at any time in the future, then that archive is no longer fulfilling its purpose of archiving important information.
If that was the reason it would have been best to state that in the request.
> Can I please just get the detail in mail so that it is archived with the list?
Of course you can't expect every email written to be perfect, it is generally treated as an informal medium in these settings. But stating the reason helps people understand your motives and serve them better.
I think that hardcode kernel devs already know the reasons, and there is no point in raising it again. For you it might seem like a random requirement, but it's because of lack of familiarity.
i think in that case explaination is needed even more, if you are hardcore dev, then no one need to remind you about such rule, on the other hand if you are not so familiar with those rules yet, explanation would be very helpful
It was completely obvious to me, and I'm not a Linux committer.
Any bug of the form:
Hi, I'm sending this via official channels, but see [external thing].
Is going to immediately bitrot. For instance, in stack overflow, for something like 10% of answers, you'll see people saying to explain what a link says instead of just linking.
The irony being that he presumably wants more information on the mailing list to keep a good archive, while not giving enough information for people to understand that and follow the advice later.
Not only the link itself - but if the email body /attachments contains the details - it is also easier to write a good reply by selectively quoting from the mail. So it isn't just for the first mail, but for the follow-up discussion thread(s).
