Message-ID: <ad386053-43c2-3489-418a-3f78a5df11af@mageia.org>
Date:   Thu, 19 Apr 2018 19:25:49 +0300
From:   Thomas Backlund <tmb@...eia.org>
To:     Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Thomas Backlund <tmb@...eia.org>
CC:     Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>,
        Sasha Levin <Alexander.Levin@...rosoft.com>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Petr Mladek <pmladek@...e.com>,
        "stable@...r.kernel.org" <stable@...r.kernel.org>,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        "akpm@...ux-foundation.org" <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        "linux-mm@...ck.org" <linux-mm@...ck.org>,
        Cong Wang <xiyou.wangcong@...il.com>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@...el.com>,
        Johannes Weiner <hannes@...xchg.org>,
        Mel Gorman <mgorman@...e.de>, Michal Hocko <mhocko@...nel.org>,
        Vlastimil Babka <vbabka@...e.cz>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@...radead.org>,
        Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@...icios.com>,
        Tetsuo Handa <penguin-kernel@...ove.sakura.ne.jp>,
        Byungchul Park <byungchul.park@....com>,
        Tejun Heo <tj@...nel.org>, Pavel Machek <pavel@....cz>
Subject: Re: [PATCH AUTOSEL for 4.14 015/161] printk: Add console owner and
 waiter logic to load balance console writes

Den 19.04.2018 kl. 18:57, skrev Greg KH:
> On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 06:16:26PM +0300, Thomas Backlund wrote:
>> Den 19.04.2018 kl. 17:22, skrev Greg KH:
>>> On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 04:05:45PM +0200, Jan Kara wrote:
>>>> On Thu 19-04-18 15:59:43, Greg KH wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 02:41:33PM +0300, Thomas Backlund wrote:
>>>>>> Den 16-04-2018 kl. 19:19, skrev Sasha Levin:
>>>>>>> On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 12:12:24PM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 16:02:03 +0000
>>>>>>>> Sasha Levin <Alexander.Levin@...rosoft.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> One of the things Greg is pushing strongly for is "bug compatibility":
>>>>>>>>> we want the kernel to behave the same way between mainline and stable.
>>>>>>>>> If the code is broken, it should be broken in the same way.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Wait! What does that mean? What's the purpose of stable if it is as
>>>>>>>> broken as mainline?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This just means that if there is a fix that went in mainline, and the
>>>>>>> fix is broken somehow, we'd rather take the broken fix than not.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> In this scenario, *something* will be broken, it's just a matter of
>>>>>>> what. We'd rather have the same thing broken between mainline and
>>>>>>> stable.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Yeah, but _intentionally_ breaking existing setups to stay "bug compatible"
>>>>>> _is_ a _regression_ you _really_ _dont_ want in a stable
>>>>>> supported distro. Because end-users dont care about upstream breaking
>>>>>> stuff... its the distro that takes the heat for that...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Something "already broken" is not a regression...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> As distro maintainer that means one now have to review _every_ patch that
>>>>>> carries "AUTOSEL", follow all the mail threads that comes up about it, then
>>>>>> track if it landed in -stable queue, and read every response and possible
>>>>>> objection to all patches in the -stable queue a second time around... then
>>>>>> check if it still got included in final stable point relase and then either
>>>>>> revert them in distro kernel or go track down all the follow-up fixes
>>>>>> needed...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Just to avoid being "bug compatible with master"
>>>>>
>>>>> I've done this "bug compatible" "breakage" more than the AUTOSEL stuff
>>>>> has in the past, so you had better also be reviewing all of my normal
>>>>> commits as well :)
>>>>>
>>>>> Anyway, we are trying not to do this, but it does, and will,
>>>>> occasionally happen.
>>>>
>>>> Sure, that's understood. So this was just misunderstanding. Sasha's
>>>> original comment really sounded like "bug compatibility" with current
>>>> master is desirable and that made me go "Are you serious?" as well...
>>>
>>> As I said before in this thread, yes, sometimes I do this on purpose.
>>>
>>
>> And I guess this is the one that gets people the feeling that
>> "stable is not as stable as it used to be" ...
> 
> It's always been this way, it's just that no one noticed :)
>

:)


>>> As an specific example, see a recent bluetooth patch that caused a
>>> regression on some chromebook devices.  The chromeos developers
>>> rightfully complainied, and I left the commit in there to provide the
>>> needed "leverage" on the upstream developers to fix this properly.
>>> Otherwise if I had reverted the stable patch, when people move to a
>>> newer kernel version, things break, and no one remembers why.
>>
>> I do understand what you are trying to do...
>>
>> But from my distro hat on I have to treat things differently (and I dont
>> think I'm alone doing it this way...)
>>
>> Known breakages gets reverted even before it hits QA, so endusers wont see
>> the issue at all...
>>
>> So the only ones to see the issue are those building with latest upstream
>> without own patches applied...
>>
>>>
>>> I also wrote a long response as to _why_ I do this, and even though it
>>> does happen, why it still is worth taking the stable updates.  Please
>>> see the archives for the full details.  I don't want to duplicate this
>>> again here.
>>
>> And we do use latest stable (with some delay as I dont want to overload QA &
>> endusers with a new kernel every week :))
> 
> You need to automate your QA :)
> 

Yeah, some can be automated... but that means having a lot of different 
hw to test on... emulators/vms can only test so much...

users part of QA test on a variety of hw with various installs/setups 
that exposes fun things with some hw :)


>> We just revert known broken (or add known fixes) before releasing them to
>> our users
> 
> That's great, and is what you should be doing, nothing wrong there.
> 
> thanks,
> 
> greg k-h
> 

--
Thomas

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