Greetings, Given current discussions, it seems timely to revamp some of the upstream wireless tree management policies. I'm sure I still won't be able to please everyone, but maybe I can change who gets to be unhappy about the process... :-) Let's review the current process. The wireless-2.6 tree has a number of branches, each with a specific use. Most of these are for my own administrative purposes relating to coping with the processes upstream from me. These include any "fixes", "upstream", or "pending" branches, as well as any "master-*" branches. There are also "merged-*" branches which I maintain to assist me when rebases are necessary. In addition, there have been topic branches such as "at76" and (formerly) "ath5k". And there is the "mm-master" branch, which primarily just collects the topic branches together for testing in -mm. The "everything" branch is an integration branch which collects patches from all the "fixes", "upstream", and "pending" branches as well as any topic branches. This is the branch I ask developers to use. The purpose of this branch is to avoid having API-level patches miss any drivers as well as to avoid any similar conflicts. Finally, in the old process the "master" branch always just pointed at the most recent full or -rc release from Linus. This always seemed to confuse users looking for the "latest and greatest" wireless bits. Moreover, all the branches created confusion among both users and developers. The new process shifts from reliance on branches to the use of several trees. Each tree may have some placeholder branches used for administrative purposes, but the interesting bits will be committed on the "master" branches of those trees to avoid confusion about which tree normal people should use. The wireless-2.6 tree will primarily become a vehicle for pushing patches to the current -rc release. This replaces the former "fixes" branches. It is my intent that this will not be rebased except in the most extreme (and unforseen) circumstances. A new wireless-2.6.26 tree (or 2.6.x as appropriate in the future) will be the vehicle for queueing patches to net-2.6.26 (or its successors) in anticipation of the next merge window. This tree will regularly be updated to correspond to the current state of net-2.6.26. I will avoid rebasing this tree as much as possible, but given its dependence on net-2.6.26 I will be somewhat at Dave's mercy... :-) Finally, a new wireless-testing tree will be created to replace the usage of the former 'everything' branch. This tree will be based on a current -rc release in hopes avoiding the churn in between -rc releases. The tree may contain topic branches (e.g. "at76") as appropriate, as well as picked commits from wireless-2.6 and wireless-2.6.26. I will attempt to limit rebasing this tree as much as practical, at the expense of having some ugly history. However, this tree almost certainly will be rebased from time to time, and you should expect any patches in this tree to be re-committed in wireless-2.6 or wireless-2.6.26 before going upstream -- you have been warned! I hope that this "covers all the bases" for our various process needs (merging fixes, queueing for the merge window, integration and on-going development). Any coments or suggestions you might have are welcome now. :-) So, comments? Thanks, John -- John W. Linville linville@xxxxxxxxxxxxx - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-wireless" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
