Re: Elaboration on "Equivalent fix must already exist in Linus' tree"

[Jeff Garzik <jeff@garzik.org>]

Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> While extending the documentation for submitting Linux wireless bug
> reports [1] we note the stable series policy on patches -- that of
> having an equivalent fix already in Linus' tree. I find this
> documented in Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt but I'm curious if
> there is any other resource which documents this or elaborates on this
> a bit more. I often tell people about this rule or push _really_ hard
> on testing "upstream" but some people tend to not understand. I think
> that elaborating a little on this can help and will hopefully create
> more awareness around the importance of trees like Stephen's
> linux-next tree.

Just have people google for GregKH's copious messages, telling people a 
fix needs to be upstream before it goes into -stable.

Typically you make things easy by emailing stable@kernel.org with a 
commit id.

There are only two exceptions:
* fix is upstream, but needs to be modified for -stable
* fix is not needed at all in upstream, but -stable still needs it

	Jeff