On Wed, Aug 14, 2024 at 12:32:00PM -0700, Alexei Starovoitov wrote: > Hi All, > > Couple years ago folks suggested that bpf-next should be > a separate pull request to increase subsystem visibility. > Back then we rejected the idea since many networking related > changes required bpf core changes. Things are different now. > bpf kfuncs can be added independently by various subsystems, > verifier additions are mainly driven by sched-ext, > so it's time to give it a shot. It's an experiment. > If things don't work out as expected we will go back to > the old model of feeding bpf trees through net/net-next trees. > > So here is the plan: > > 1. bpf fixes go directly to Linus (skipping net tree) and > net/bpf trees are fast forwarded afterwards as usual. > > 2. Non-networking bpf commits land in bpf-next/master branch. > It will form bpf-next PR during the merge window. > > 3. Networking related commits (like XDP) land in bpf-next/net branch. > They will be PR-ed to net-next and ffwded from net-next > as we do today. All these patches will get to mainline > via net-next PR. Hi Alexei, Nice plan :) I wonder if, bpf-next/net-next might be a more intuitive name, as the proposed branch is closely related to net-next. OTOH, mabey one '-next', as per your proposal, is enough :) > > 4. bpf-next/master and bpf-next/net branches are manually > merged into bpf-next/for-next branch. > This step achieves two objectives: > - bpf maintainers watch for conflicts between /master and /net > - Stephen Rothwell continues taking /for-next branch into linux-next > as usual > > bpf CI will run tests against 4 trees (instead of 2): > bpf, bpf-next/master, bpf-next/net, bpf-next/for-next. > This is wip. Watch for more "Checks" in patchwork. > > By the merge window in September we will reassess > the situation and if it's still worth doing we will > proceed with PR formed from bpf-next/master. > If not, we will PR bpf-next/master into net-next and > call it a failed experiment. > > We feel that there are more positives to this process > than headaches, so fingers crossed. >
