Merge branch 'jc/submitting-patches-cover-letter' into next

Guidelines on how to write a cover letter for a multi-patch series
have been added to SubmittingPatches, which also got a new marker
to separate the section for typofixes.

* jc/submitting-patches-cover-letter:
  SubmittingPatches: describe cover letter
  SubmittingPatches: separate typofixes section

Documentation/SubmittingPatches

@@ -237,6 +237,7 @@ Do not forget to update the documentation to describe the updated
 behavior and make sure that the resulting documentation set formats
 well (try the Documentation/doc-diff script).
 
+[[typofixes]]
 We currently have a liberal mixture of US and UK English norms for
 spelling and grammar, which is somewhat unfortunate.  A huge patch that
 touches the files all over the place only to correct the inconsistency
@@ -471,6 +472,30 @@ highlighted above.
 Only capitalize the very first letter of the trailer, i.e. favor
 "Signed-off-by" over "Signed-Off-By" and "Acked-by:" over "Acked-By".
 
+[[cover-letter]]
+=== Cover Letter
+
+The purpose of your cover letter is to sell your changes, explain what
+they are about, and get your target audience interested enough to read
+the patches.
+
+. Every code change comes with risk of regression and maintenance cost.
+  The cover letter should clearly communicate why the value of your
+  proposed change is worth applying. You can also describe how the risk
+  is reduced by the design choices you made while writing the patches.
+
+. Make sure your target audience can understand what the patches are
+  about and why they are needed without prior context.
+
+. For a second or subsequent iteration of the same topic, make sure
+  people who missed the earlier discussion can still understand what
+  the patches are about, so they can judge if the topic is worth their
+  time to read and comment on.
+
+. To help those who are familiar with earlier iterations, give a
+  summary of changes since the previous rounds.
+
+
 [[ai]]
 === Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)