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

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Date:   Fri, 8 Apr 2022 13:24:32 +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 Fri, Apr 08, 2022 at 11:29:33AM +0300, Alexey Khoroshilov wrote:
> On 30.03.2022 07:36, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > 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?
> I see, thank you.
> 
> I believed the goal is to provide some minimal quality guarantees for a
> particular version of the code.

I do not understand what you mean by this.  Can you please explain?

> But if the process of updates is quite
> intensive, it may make sense to transfer responsibility for particular
> release verification downstream.

There is no need to transfer anything as per the license of the kernel,
right?

I do not understand what you are trying to do here.  Can you provide
details please?

thanks,

greg k-h