Re: [PATCH 0/7] Permit filesystem local caching and NFS superblock sharing [try #13]

[Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>]

On Thu, 31 Aug 2006 18:42:08 +0100
David Howells <dhowells@redhat.com> wrote:

> > Your CONFIG_BLOCK patches did a decent job of trashing your
> > fs-cache-make-kafs-* patches, btw.  What's up with that?  OK, it's sensible
> > for people to work against mainline but the net effect of doing that is to
> > create a mess for other people to clean up.
> 
> Hmmm...  Jens wanted my block patches against his tree; you wanted my NFS
> patches against Trond's NFS tree.  I guess I should try stacking the whole
> lot, but against what?  And who carries the fixes?  A patch to fix this
> problem may well only apply to a tree that's the conjunction of both:-/

There is no easy solution, particularly with a patch like that one which
splatters itself all over the place.

The best time to do such things is against 2.6.x-rc1, when everyone is
maximally-merged-up.  The worst time is when we're at 2.6.x-rc5, when
everyone is maximally-unmerged-up.

If we're at -rc5 and one doesn't want to wait for a few weeks then one can
work against the -mm lineup, because then when we hit -rc1 and the
subsystems are merged up, the proposed patch will slot in nicely with
minimal breakage: no queue-jumping.

The exception to that rule is patches which move files around.  Because
even a single-line change in one of the affected files will cause the
move-things-around patch to break, and to need somewhat risky rework.  In
that case, simply waiting until -rc1 is the best approach