On Mon, 2 Mar 2009, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 11:26 PM, Greg KH <greg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
- Show quoted text -
On Mon, Mar 02, 2009 at 10:44:40PM -0800, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 9:57 PM, Jeff Garzik <jeff@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
While extending the documentation for submitting Linux wireless bug
reports [1] we note the stable series policy on patches -- that of
having an equivalent fix already in Linus' tree. I find this
documented in Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt but I'm curious if
there is any other resource which documents this or elaborates on this
a bit more. I often tell people about this rule or push _really_ hard
on testing "upstream" but some people tend to not understand. I think
that elaborating a little on this can help and will hopefully create
more awareness around the importance of trees like Stephen's
linux-next tree.
Just have people google for GregKH's copious messages, telling people a fix
needs to be upstream before it goes into -stable.
Typically you make things easy by emailing stable@xxxxxxxxxx with a commit
id.
There are only two exceptions:
* fix is upstream, but needs to be modified for -stable
* fix is not needed at all in upstream, but -stable still needs it
This certainly helps, I'm also looking for good arguments to support
the reasoning behind the policy so that not only will people follow
this to help development but _understand_ it and so that they can
themselves promote things like linux-next and realize why its so
important. Mind you -- upstream for us in wireless for example is not
Linus its John's tree so what we promote is not to get the fix first
into Linus' tree but first into John's tree. Which is obvious to
developers but perhaps not to others.
Who are these "people" that you are trying to convince?
OK small silly example is convincing distributions it may be a good
idea to carry linux-next kernel packages as options to users to
hopefully down the road reduce the delta between what they carry and
what is actually upstream.
linux-next is a testing tree for developers, it changes day to day,
doesn't contain all relavent changes, and is definantly _not_ something
that distros should be pushing to users.
kernel.org kernels (and _possibly_ rc's) would have value (I'm glad to see
Ubuntu making this move), but linux-next is not something that should be
pushed out.
If they aren't
developers, why would any "others" care about our development
proceedures?
Right -- in this case above "others" could be developers but could
also be distribution guys. Essentially I was looking for arguments to
push and show why linux-next is the next best thing since sliced bread
for all those nasty deltas.
Which OK -- maybe they can never disappear (?) but hopefully it can at
least be reduced in size over time.
Heck, very few developers even read the Documentation files, I'd never
expect an "other" to do that :)
Heh.. Maybe I expect too much of people and things.
I think you are misunderstanding linux-next and how it relates to users
and distros.
David Lang
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