[Ksummit-discuss] [CORE TOPIC] Issues with stable process
Rafael J. Wysocki
rjw at rjwysocki.net
Mon Jul 13 22:55:18 UTC 2015
On Monday, July 13, 2015 03:10:12 PM NeilBrown wrote:
> On Mon, 13 Jul 2015 00:27:52 -0400 Sasha Levin <sasha.levin at oracle.com>
> wrote:
>
> > On 07/12/2015 08:52 PM, NeilBrown wrote:
> > > My proposal would be to change the default timing.
> > > Currently patches tagged for 'stable' go into the next -stable release
> > > after they get into Linus's tree. You can ask for an exception
> > > (sooner, later, different patch) and Greg (or any other stable
> > > maintainer) tries to be accommodating. But you have to remember to ask.
> > >
> > > I would rather that the default was that patches don't go into -stable
> > > until they have
> > > - been in a full release from Linus and
> > > - been in a Linus's tree for at least 2 weeks.
> > > (or 1 week times the age of the target in releases.
> > > So a fix in 4.4 get to 4.3-stable after a week, 4.2-stable
> > > after 2 weeks etc .... maybe I'm going over-board here).
> > >
> > > Many fixes are important but simply aren't that urgent so the two or
> > > more weeks is no great cost.
> >
> > I'd actually argue that Linus shouldn't be pulling *anything* that wasn't in
> > -next for 2+ weeks. There's no good excuse to want something pulled immediately
> > as the only benefit Linus's tree provides in that aspect is the wider testing
> > it receives, so it would make sense to weed out more bugs in -next before they
> > get to Linus.
>
> As long as there is a clear 2 week window between a patch being "out
> there for wide testing" and being auto-pulled into a -stable, I would
> see an improvement.
>
> However I'm not at all convinced that being in -next is really "out
> there for wide testing".
Agreed. I'm not even sure about -rcs from Linus for that matter.
Unfortunately, -stable often get's wide testing before anything else.
> Certainly some testing happens in -next, but my understand is that it is
> mainly about integration testing, not burn-in testing.
>
> Isn't the point of the 2-week merge window is that we all stop writing
> more bugs and instead start testing to find each others bugs? You seem
> to want to make the previous two weeks fill that role. I don't think
> that would work.
I guess the idea is to avoid exposing -stable users to commits that
mainline users have not been really exposed to yet.
It really is a matter of what is marked for -stable IMO. Some of those things
should not really carry a "Cc: stable" tag until they've received some wider
testing in the mainline.
> > I think that this is a small mind-shift from thinking about Linus's tree as
> > an integration tree to considering it as mostly bug-free code, and stop
> > merging in risky patches. We already have -next for that.
>
> I certainly do see Linus's tree as mostly bug-free code. Certainly I
> don't submit something until I'm reasonably confident. Unfortunately I
> am sometimes wrong. Usually by rc8 it is a lot closer to bug-free.
> That steady improvement is the whole point. So going from rc8 to
> stable makes lots more sense than going from rc1 to stable.
Agreed.
Thanks,
Rafael
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