Re: [LSF/MM TOPIC] FS, MM, and stable trees

[Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Tue, Mar 08, 2022 at 11:32:43AM +0200, Amir Goldstein wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 12, 2019 at 7:31 PM Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'd like to propose a discussion about the workflow of the stable trees
> > when it comes to fs/ and mm/. In the past year we had some friction with
> > regards to the policies and the procedures around picking patches for
> > stable tree, and I feel it would be very useful to establish better flow
> > with the folks who might be attending LSF/MM.
> >
> > I feel that fs/ and mm/ are in very different places with regards to
> > which patches go in -stable, what tests are expected, and the timeline
> > of patches from the point they are proposed on a mailing list to the
> > point they are released in a stable tree. Therefore, I'd like to propose
> > two different sessions on this (one for fs/ and one for mm/), as a
> > common session might be less conductive to agreeing on a path forward as
> > the starting point for both subsystems are somewhat different.
> >
> > We can go through the existing processes, automation, and testing
> > mechanisms we employ when building stable trees, and see how we can
> > improve these to address the concerns of fs/ and mm/ folks.
> >
> 
> Hi Sasha,
> 
> I think it would be interesting to have another discussion on the state of fs/
> in -stable and see if things have changed over the past couple of years.
> If you do not plan to attend LSF/MM in person, perhaps you will be able to
> join this discussion remotely?
> 
> >From what I can see, the flow of ext4/btrfs patches into -stable still looks
> a lot healthier than the flow of xfs patches into -stable.

That is explicitly because the ext4/btrfs developers/maintainers are
marking patches for stable backports, while the xfs
developers/maintainers are not.

It has nothing to do with how me and Sasha are working, so go take this
up with the fs developers :)

> In 2019, Luis started an effort to improve this situation (with some
> assistance from me and you) that ended up with several submissions
> of stable patches for v4.19.y, but did not continue beyond 2019.
> 
> When one looks at xfstest bug reports on the list for xfs on kernels > v4.19
> one has to wonder if using xfs on kernels v5.x.y is a wise choice.

That's up to the xfs maintainers to discuss.

> Which makes me wonder: how do the distro kernel maintainers keep up
> with xfs fixes?

Who knows, ask the distro maintainers that use xfs.  What do they do?

The xfs developers/maintainer told us (Sasha and I) to not cherry-pick
any xfs "fixes:" patches to the stable trees unless they explicitly
marked it for stable.  So there's not much we can do here about this
without their involvement as I do not want to ever route around an
active maintainer like that.

> Many of the developers on CC of this message are involved in development
> of a distro kernel (at least being consulted with), so I would be very much
> interested to know how and if this issue is being dealt with.

Maybe no distro cares about xfs?  :)

thanks,

greg k-h