On Wed, Sep 23, 2020 at 02:48:24PM -0700, Andrii Nakryiko wrote: > On Wed, Sep 23, 2020 at 2:20 PM Alexei Starovoitov > <alexei.starovoitov@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > > BPF developers, > > > > The merge window is 1.5 weeks away or 2.5 weeks if rc8 happens. In the past we > > observed a rush of patches to get in before bpf-next closes for the duration of > > the merge window. Then there is a flood of patches right after bpf-next > > reopens. Both periods create unnecessary tension for developers and maintainers. > > In order to mitigate these issues we're planning to keep bpf-next open > > during upcoming merge window and if this experiment works out we will keep > > doing it in the future. The problem that bpf-next cannot be fully open, since > > during the merge window lots of trees get pulled by Linus with inevitable bugs > > and conflicts. The merge window is the time to fix bugs that got exposed > > because of merges and because more people test torvalds/linux.git than > > bpf/bpf-next.git. > > > > Hence starting roughly one week before the merge window few risky patches will > > be applied to the 'next' branch in the bpf-next tree instead of > > Riskiness would be up to maintainers to determine or should we mark > patches with a different tag (bpf-next-next?) explicitly? "Risky" in a sense of needing a revert. The bpf tree and two plus -rc1 to -rc7 weeks should be enough to address any issues except the most fundamental ones. Something like the recent bpf_tail_call support in subprograms I would consider for the "next" branch if it was posted a day before the merge window. In practice, I suspect, such cases will be rare. I think bpf-next-next tag should not be used. All features are for [bpf-next]. Fixes are for [bpf]. The bpf-next/next is a temporary parking place for patches while the merge window is ongoing.
