linux-kernel - Re: Stable release process proposal (Was: Linux 5.10.109)

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Date:   Wed, 30 Mar 2022 06:36:30 +0200
From:   Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To:     Alexey Khoroshilov <khoroshilov@...ras.ru>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, akpm@...ux-foundation.org,
        torvalds@...ux-foundation.org, stable@...r.kernel.org, lwn@....net,
        jslaby@...e.cz
Subject: Re: Stable release process proposal (Was: Linux 5.10.109)

On Wed, Mar 30, 2022 at 02:49:00AM +0300, Alexey Khoroshilov wrote:
> Dear Greg,
> 
> First of all, thank you very much for keeping stable maintenance so well.
> 
> We (Linux Verification Center of ISPRAS (linuxtesting.org)) are going to
> join a team of regular testers for releases in 5.10 stable branch (and
> other branches later). We are deploying some test automation for that
> and have met an oddity that would to discuss.
> 
> Sometimes, like in 5.10.109 release, we have a situation when a
> released version (5.10.109) differs from the release candidate
> (5.10.109-rс1). In this case there was a patch "llc: only change
> llc->dev when bind()succeeds" added to fix a bug in another llc fix.
> Unfortunately, as Pavel noted, this patch does not fix a bug, but
> introduces a new one, because another commit b37a46683739 ("netdevice:
> add the case if dev is NULL") was missed in 5.10 branch.

This happens quite frequently due to issues found in testing.  It's not
a new thing.

> The problem will be fixed in 5.10.110, but we still have a couple oddities:
> - we have a release that should not be recommended for use
> - we have a commit message misleading users when says:
> 
>     Tested-by: Pavel Machek (CIP) <pavel@...x.de>
>     Tested-by: Fox Chen <foxhlchen@...il.com>
>     Tested-by: Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@...il.com>
>     Tested-by: Shuah Khan <skhan@...uxfoundation.org>
>     Tested-by: Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@...il.com>
>     Tested-by: Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@...ian.org>
>     Tested-by: Linux Kernel Functional Testing <lkft@...aro.org>
>     Tested-by: Sudip Mukherjee <sudip.mukherjee@...ethink.co.uk>
>     Tested-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@...ck-us.net>
> 
> but actually nobody tested that version.
> 
> There are potential modifications in stable release process that can
> prevent such problems:
> 
> (1) to always release rс2 when there are changes in rc1 introduced
> 
> (2) to avoid Tested-by: section from release commits in such situations.
> 
> Or may be it is overkill and it too complicates maintenance work to be
> worth. What do you think?

I think it's not worth the extra work on my side for this given the
already large workload.  What would benifit from this to justify it?

thanks,

greg k-h