Re: 5.13.2-rc and others have many not for stable

From: Michal Hocko
Date: Wed Jul 14 2021 - 03:53:02 EST


On Tue 13-07-21 18:28:13, Andrew Morton wrote:
[...]
> > Trying to keep a "do not apply" list for Fixes: tags only is much harder
> > for both of us as we do these semi-manually and review them
> > individually. Trying to remember what subsystem only does Fixes tags
> > yet really doesn't mean it is an impossible task.
>
> Well, it shouldn't be super hard to skip all patches which have Fixes:,
> Signed-off-by:akpm and no cc:stable?
>
> I'd really really prefer this, please.

Yes please!

> At present this -stable
> promiscuity is overriding the (sometime carefully) considered decisions
> of the MM developers, and that's a bit scary.

Not only scary, it is also a waste of precious time of those who
carefuly evaluate stable tree backports.

> I've actually been
> spending the past couple of years believing that if I left off
> cc:stable, the fix wasn't going to go into -stable!
>
> Alternatively I could just invent a new tag to replace the "Fixes:"
> ("Fixes-no-backport?") to be used on patches which fix a known previous
> commit but which we don't want backported.

Please no. We already do have a way to mark for stable trees. The fact
that stable kernel maintainers tend oto ignore that shouldn't put the
burden to developers/maintainers. But hey, if stable maintainers really
want to push to quantity over quality then be it....

--
Michal Hocko
SUSE Labs