linux-kernel - Re: When to push bug fixes to mainline

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Message-ID: <51DF773F.8010506@huawei.com>
Date:	Fri, 12 Jul 2013 11:25:51 +0800
From:	Li Zefan <lizefan@...wei.com>
To:	"Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@....edu>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
	<linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	<akpm@...ux-foundation.org>, <stable@...r.kernel.org>,
	<ksummit-2013-discuss@...ts.linux-foundation.org>
Subject: Re: When to push bug fixes to mainline

On 2013/7/12 8:50, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 03:01:17PM -0700, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
>> <rant>
>>   I'm sitting on top of over 170 more patches that have been marked for
>>   the stable releases right now that are not included in this set of
>>   releases.  The fact that there are this many patches for stable stuff
>>   that are waiting to be merged through the main -rc1 merge window cycle
>>   is worrying to me.
>>
>>   Why are subsystem maintainers holding on to fixes that are
>>   _supposedly_ affecting all users?  I mean, 21 powerpc core changes
>>   that I don't see until a -rc1 merge?  It's as if developers don't
>>   expect people to use a .0 release and are relying on me to get the
>>   fixes they have burried in their trees out to users.  That's not that
>>   nice.  6 "core" iscsi-target fixes?  That's the sign of either a
>>   broken subsystem maintainer, or a lack of understanding what the
>>   normal -rc kernel releases are supposed to be for.
> 
> At least at one point in the past, the rule that Linus had laid down
> after discussing things at Kernel Summits was after -rc2, or maybe
> -rc3 at the latest, the ***only*** fixes that should be sent to Linus
> would be for regression fixes or for really serious data integrity
> issues.  The concern was that people were pushing bug fixes in -rc5 or
> -rc6 that were in some cases causing regressions.
> 
> (As I recall, Linus laid down the law regarding this policy in his own
> inimitable and colorful style; which today would result in all sorts
> of tsk, tsking on Hacker News regarding his language.  :-)
> 
> In any case, I've been very conservative in _not_ pushing bug fixes to
> Linus after -rc3 (unless they are fixing a regression or the bug fix
> is super-serious); I'd much rather have them cook in the ext4 tree
> where they can get a lot more testing (a full regression test run for
> ext4 takes over 24 hours), and for people trying out linux-next.
> 
> Maybe the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of holding back
> changes and trying to avoid the risk of introducing regressions;
> perhaps this would be a good topic to discuss at the Kernel Summit.
> 

Looks like each maintainer may have his rule which may differ from the
rule laid down by Linus.

I have 2 network patches which went into 3.10-rc6, though these two bugs
are not regressions but has been there even before the git history.

On the other hand, 2 of my cgroup bug fixes were queued for 3.11 with
stable tag added.

And what about Documentation fixes and updates? Should those patches
also follow Linus' rule? I guess people have different opinions.

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