linux-kernel - Re: [GIT PULL] probes: Update for v6.18

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Message-ID: <CAHk-=whpwrrkPCmPa1dnejVr8AcJVpfyh0CfD-3sNhUO47A1dQ@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2025 20:09:02 -0700
From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
To: Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org>
Cc: Menglong Dong <menglong8.dong@...il.com>, Thorsten Blum <thorsten.blum@...ux.dev>, 
	Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] probes: Update for v6.18

On Sun, 5 Oct 2025 at 17:27, Masami Hiramatsu <mhiramat@...nel.org> wrote:
>
> Hmm, I applogise this error. I locally ran build tests and it passed.
> But I might missed something.

So this is why linux-next exists - to get testing with different
configurations, different compiler versions, different architectures
etc.

Local build tests are good, and obviously necessary for some very basic testing.

And local build test can be perfectly sufficient - if it's some small
obvious fix, it's often simply not worth it waiting for a few days for
linux-next to get it merged and tested.

And no, linux-next isn't perfect, and won't find everything anyway.

And even the most trivial small change that quite reasonably didn't go
through linux-next because it was so simple can also end up breaking
things.

So none of this is some kind of "absolute black-and-white rule", and
none of this _guarantees_ that everything always works.

Even when everybody does the best they can, something will
occasionally be missed. I definitely accept that we're not perfect.

But big new features coming in during the merge window had better be
extensively checked _some_ way.

If I find problems in my fairly limited sanity-check build tests, I get unhappy.

It's one thing if it's some little mistake that I feel reasonably
missed testing for some understandable reason.

But if I get the feeling that the problem was that there just wasn't
enough care to begin with, that's when I go "nope, this will need to
wait for another release and be done properly".

And that's what happened this time around. That wasn't some trivial
little change, and it clearly didn't get a lot of coverage testing.

It should have gone through linux-next, and the problem would have
been found there instead of when I tried to merge it.

               Linus