netdev - RISC-V for-next/fixes (cont'd from PW sync)

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Message-ID: <87ttkro3b5.fsf@all.your.base.are.belong.to.us>
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2024 20:57:50 +0100
From: Björn Töpel <bjorn@...nel.org>
To: Conor Dooley <conor@...nel.org>, Paul Walmsley
 <paul.walmsley@...ive.com>, Palmer Dabbelt <palmer@...belt.com>, Albert Ou
 <aou@...s.berkeley.edu>, Emil Renner Berthing <kernel@...il.dk>, Samuel
 Holland <samuel.holland@...ive.com>, Alexandre Ghiti
 <alexghiti@...osinc.com>, Björn Töpel
 <bjorn@...osinc.com>,
 linux-riscv@...ts.infradead.org, Andy Chiu <andy.chiu@...ive.com>
Cc: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
 netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: RISC-V for-next/fixes (cont'd from PW sync)

Hi,

I figured I'd put some words on the "how to update the RISC-V
for-next/fixes branches [1]" that came up on the patchwork call today.

In RISC-V land, the for-next branch is used for features, and typically
sent as a couple of PRs to Linus when the merge window is open. The
fixes branch is sent as PR(s) between the RCs of a release.

Today, the baseline for for-next/fixes is the CURRENT_RELEASE-rc1, and
features/fixes are based on that.

This has IMO a couple of issues:

1. fixes is missing the non-RISC-V fixes from releases later than
   -rc1, which makes it harder for contributors.
2. for-next does not have the fixes from RISC-V/rest of the kernel,
   and it's hard for contributors to test the work on for-next (buggy,
   no fixes, and sometime missing deps).

I used to spend a whole lot of mine time in the netdev tree of the
kernel, and this is how they manage it (Thanks Kuba!):

Netdev (here exchanged to RISC-V trees), fast-forward fixes, and then
cross-merge fixes into for-next -- for every -rc.

E.g., say fixes is submitted for -rc2 to Linus, once he pulls, do:

  git push --delete origin $SOMETAG
  git tag -d $SOMETAG
  git pull --ff-only --tags git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
  build / test / push out.

Then pull fixes into for-next:

  git pull --tags git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/riscv/linux.git fixes

Personally (obviously biased), I think this would be easier for
contributors. Any downsides from a RISC-V perspective?

Björn

[1] git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/riscv/linux.git