Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Bug-introducing patches

[Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>]

On Fri, Sep 07, 2018 at 10:57:45PM +0000, Sasha Levin wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 07, 2018 at 03:53:08PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> >On Fri, Sep 7, 2018 at 3:43 PM Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> On Fri, Sep 07, 2018 at 03:27:01PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> >> >
> >> > So maybe an automated "linux-next" that starts happening *before* the
> >> > rc stage would catch some things?
> >>
> >> And it does, as soon as Greg publishes a set of patches.
> >
> >Yes, yes, I was clearly not explaining myself well.
> >
> >I see all the reports that you (and Nathan, and Shuah, and others) do
> >for stable rc's. So I very much know that happens.
> >
> >But I was literally thinking of that week or two *before* Greg
> >actually picks up the stable patches because he wants to have them get
> >some testing in mainline first.
> >
> >*If* the same kinds of scripts that Greg and Sasha already use to pick
> >up their stable patches could be automated early, maybe the patches
> >would also get a bit of special testing in the *context* of the stable
> >tree? A special automated "these are marked for stable, but haven't
> >been picked up yet" stable-next testing thing?
> 
> I agree. This is what I was suggesting with stable-next branches.
> 
> I actually had something to do automatic testing of such commits as they
> get pushed upstream, sending mails with the results. For example: 
> https://lkml.org/lkml/2018/4/4/923 but folks complained it was too
> noisy.
> 
Wrong lesson, I think. You can still run those tests, just don't send
result e-mails but use the result as decision criteria if the patch should
be included in a stable release (and, if not, inform the submitter that
it won't be applied to stable because the test failed).

Guenter