Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] The amount of -stable emails

[Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Tue, Aug 05, 2025 at 01:33:39PM -0400, James Bottomley wrote:
> On Tue, 2025-08-05 at 13:26 -0400, Sasha Levin wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 05, 2025 at 12:49:02PM -0400, James Bottomley wrote:
> [...]
> > > Actually, if stable emails just had a header tag, it would be easy
> > > for procmail to sort them out ... which is what I've been asking
> > > for for years.  X-Stable-Base: and X-Stable: seem to be reasonably
> > > common and catch most of it, but codifying the use in the kernel
> > > documentation and using them consistently would really help.
> > 
> > Do we have any stable-related mails that don't have an X-Stable:
> > header?
> 
> It seems to be mostly working for now, but what I often find is the
> header changes on a whim and the filter stops working.

When has it changed?  If it does, always let us know as odds are it is
not intentional.

> And, since nothing is written down, we all have to guess again what it
> means.  If you're confident this one's not going to change, why not
> document it and commit to using it in the stable process docs?

Sure, I can do that.

But also, if these emails really aren't needed/wanted, we can easily
just not send them out.  I have done so since the start of the stable
kernel process, just over 20 years ago, as I thought they were
informative.  But if not, and people are just treating them as spam to
file away, I can gladly ONLY email them to the stable-commits mailing
list so that lore can properly archive them.

thanks,

greg k-h