On Wed, Dec 02, 2020 at 06:41:43PM +0100, Miklos Szeredi wrote:
> On Wed, Dec 2, 2020 at 5:24 PM David Howells <dhowells@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Miklos Szeredi <miklos@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > > Stable cc also?
> > >
> > > Cc: <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> # 5.8
> >
> > That seems to be unnecessary, provided there's a Fixes: tag.
>
> Is it?
>
> Fixes: means it fixes a patch, Cc: stable means it needs to be
> included in stable kernels. The two are not necessarily the same.
>
> Greg?
You are correct. cc: stable, as is documented in
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/stable-kernel-rules.html
ensures that the patch will get merged into the stable tree.
Fixes: is independent of it. It's great to have for stable patches so
that I know how far back to backport patches.
We do scan all commits for Fixes: tags that do not have cc: stable, and
try to pick them up when we can and have the time to do so. But it's
not guaranteed at all that this will happen.
I don't know why people keep getting confused about this, we don't
document the "Fixes: means it goes to stable" anywhere...
thanks,
greg k-h
