On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 05:35:30PM -0500, Sasha Levin wrote: > On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 09:38:46PM +0000, Eric Biggers wrote: > > Just because you can't be 100% certain whether a commit is a fix doesn't mean > > you should be rushing to backport random commits that have no indications they > > are fixing anything. > > The difference in opinion here is that I don't think it's rushing: the > stable kernel rules say a commit must be in a released kernel, while the > AUTOSEL timelines make it so a commit must have been in two released > kernels. Patches in -rc1 have been in _no_ released kernels. I'd feel a lot better about AUTOSEL if it didn't pick up changes until, say, -rc4, unless they were cc'd to stable. > > Nothing has changed, but that doesn't mean that your process is actually > > working. 7 days might be appropriate for something that looks like a security > > fix, but not for a random commit with no indications it is fixing anything. > > How do we know if this is working or not though? How do you quantify the > amount of useful commits? Sasha, 7 days is too short. People have to be allowed to take holiday. > I'd love to improve the process, but for that we need to figure out > criteria for what we consider good or bad, collect data, and make > decisions based on that data. > > What I'm getting from this thread is a few anecdotal examples and > statements that the process isn't working at all. > > I took Jon's stablefixes script which he used for his previous articles > around stable kernel regressions (here: > https://lwn.net/Articles/812231/) and tried running it on the 5.15 > stable tree (just a random pick). I've proceeded with ignoring the > non-user-visible regressions as Jon defined in his article (basically > issues that were introduced and fixed in the same releases) and ended up > with 604 commits that caused a user visible regression. > > Out of those 604 commits: > > - 170 had an explicit stable tag. > - 434 did not have a stable tag. I think a lot of people don't realise they have to _both_ put a Fixes tag _and_ add a Cc: stable. How many of those 604 commits had a Fixes tag?
