* John Stultz <john.stultz@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 01/24/2014 02:27 AM, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > * John Stultz <john.stultz@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >> [...]
> >>
> >> I'd argue these were non-urgent fixes that should still be
> >> backported to -stable.
> >
> > No such thing exists really. Linus argued this repeatedly: if you
> > think it's not urgent enough for current -git then it's doubly not
> > urgent enough for -stable!
> >
> > So my suggestion for the future: such fixes need to go to -git as
> > well, even if they seem difficult and late. Merging via the merge
> > window and then backporting is a generally harmful practice.
>
> So I think the difficulty here, for many maintainers who want to
> take a conservative approach and not be trying to squeeze
> non-critical fixes in right before a release, is how exactly is this
> a harmful process?
Because, by its very nature and by its very name the stability of
-stable is _more critical_ to users than the stability of Linus's
tree, so whatever is merged into -stable should have been
urgent-merged into Linus's tree as well (except very special
circumstances which don't apply here).
The specific pattern I objected to was:
- First the timer fixes were delayed to v3.14 because you stated
that "they were too late for v3.13". They might have been too late
for v3.13 after the final -rc perhaps, but not at the time you
sent them, in early January.
- I pulled them for v3.14 and pushed them to Linus a few days ago.
- Then you attempted to push them to -stable shortly after they were
merged!
that is a big no-no in my book and I'd like to make sure you
understand this so it does not repeat in the future. I'm still not
sure you understand it.
The reasoning is simple: if a fix is serious and wanted enough to be
in -stable, then it sure should almost never be _delayed_ to get into
current -git, unless a -final release is imminent and current -git is
essentially closed!
> > The fact that Greg is a soft hearted maintainer while Linus pushes
> > back strongly, in Finnish if needed, does not make this approach
> > right.
>
> I don't know how much I buy Greg as being some sort of pushover..
> [...]
Greg is certainly not a pushover. He's polite and nice, while Linus is
to the point and shrill if he finds a problem - so people tend to get
this false reflex to delay fixes for Linus, while sending the fixes to
-stable the moment they hit upstream in the merge window.
My point in this particular case is: now it's probably fine to merge
these patches into -stable because we cannot undo the mistake, but I'd
like to make sure this does not repeat in the future.
My mistake was that I did not notice the -stable tags in your commits,
if so I would have pulled the fixes into timers/urgent instead.
So lets do this better in the future, ok?
Thanks,
Ingo
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