linux-kernel - Re: bug-introducing patches

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Message-ID: <CAMuHMdWNFz_9OpddZ6tTaQcNVH01pkhwd0+3Z31uDcZvbkV6Ow@mail.gmail.com>
Date:   Wed, 2 May 2018 17:32:37 +0200
From:   Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@...ux-m68k.org>
To:     Sasha Levin <Alexander.Levin@...rosoft.com>
Cc:     "ksummit-discuss@...ts.linuxfoundation.org" 
        <ksummit-discuss@...ts.linuxfoundation.org>,
        Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>, "w@....eu" <w@....eu>,
        "julia.lawall@...6.fr" <julia.lawall@...6.fr>,
        "linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: bug-introducing patches

Hi Sasha,

On Tue, May 1, 2018 at 6:38 PM, Sasha Levin
<Alexander.Levin@...rosoft.com> wrote:
> Working on AUTOSEL, it became even more obvious to me how difficult it is for a
> patch to get a proper review. Maintainers found it difficult to keep up with
> the upstream work for their subsystem, and reviewing additional -stable patches
> put even more load on them which some suggested would be more than what they
> can handle.

Thanks for your work!

>  - For some reason, the odds of a -rc commit to be targetted for -stable is
>    over 20%, while for merge window commits it's about 3%. I can't quite
> explain why that happens, but this would suggest that -rc commits end up
> hurting -stable pretty badly.

Aren't more -rc commits targeted for -stable because they are bugfixes?
Ideally, new features are supposed to be merged during the merge window,
while -rc commits fix bugs.

So they can be categorized like:
  1. Plain -rc commits,
  2. -rc commits fixing a bug:
       a. in the same release cycle,
       b. in a previous release.

2a assumes the bug was backported to -stable, too, doesn't it?

Do you have statistics for which categories are most buggy?

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

                        Geert

-- 
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@...ux-m68k.org

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
                                -- Linus Torvalds