Re: Xen dom0 Kernel Patches

[Tim Post <echo@echoreply.us>]

On Thu, 2009-06-04 at 08:59 +0200, Gerd Hoffmann wrote:
> On 06/04/09 05:43, Tim Post wrote:
> > On Wed, 2009-06-03 at 22:31 +0100, Keir Fraser wrote:
> >
> >> Yes, it doesn't have to be all pushed upstream for it to be used. It's just
> >> a question of how big the out-of-upstream patchset is that Jeremy has to
> >> manage. And actually there's maintenance work even with the upstreamed
> >> patches, of course. But none of that directly matters for consumers of
> >> Jeremy's tree.
> >
> > No, of course it doesn't. The problem is, Jeremy's tree is very much a
> > moving target as he works to produce patches that upstream will accept.
> 
> Well, that might be fixable without too much effort.  Maybe jeremy could 
> simply branch off a stable branch for 2.6.30 before rebasing to 
> 2.6.31-rc1?

Even semi-stable would be agreeable as a start. If the various distros
and users who want to package Xen focus their efforts on that single
repository, it 'semi' could be dropped very quickly.

>   Just to have something people can pull which is not based 
> on some -rc bleeding edge kernel?  That branch wouldn't get updates, 
> except maybe for cherry-picked bugfixes, maybe also 2.6.30.x stable 
> patches if they apply cleanly.

That's what I was proposing. Just CVE's and major bugfixes would do just
fine. If people want fixups in a file system, they can just cherry pick
on their own. The idea being customers of that repo only need to update
their deployments when something really scary or really juicy is pulled.

An example of juicy: the stuff Dan is working on. There's no reason why
new experimental features can't go into the static tree, that keeps them
from cluttering Jeremy's workspace while getting them attention and
testing.

> Development would still happen in the 
> xen-next + xen-master branches of course.

Yes. If -stable can keep up with (or one version behind) mainline, the
whole sense of urgency to see everything merged goes down to a dull
roar.

Its not just users, integrators and developers who have been watching
these lists for the last few weeks .. its also our customers.

Cheers,
--Tim