Re: AUTOSEL process

[Eric Biggers <ebiggers@kernel.org>]

On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 09:18:59AM -0500, Sasha Levin wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 26, 2023 at 11:24:36AM -0800, Eric Biggers wrote:
> > On Sat, Feb 25, 2023 at 09:30:37PM -0800, Eric Biggers wrote:
> > > On Sat, Feb 25, 2023 at 08:07:55PM -0800, Eric Biggers wrote:
> > > > On Sat, Feb 25, 2023 at 10:42:47PM -0500, Sasha Levin wrote:
> > > > > From: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@google.com>
> > > > >
> > > > > [ Upstream commit ec64036e68634231f5891faa2b7a81cdc5dcd001 ]
> > > > >
> > > > > Now that the key associated with the "test_dummy_operation" mount option
> > > > > is added on-demand when it's needed, rather than immediately when the
> > > > > filesystem is mounted, fscrypt_destroy_keyring() no longer needs to be
> > > > > called from __put_super() to avoid a memory leak on mount failure.
> > > > >
> > > > > Remove this call, which was causing confusion because it appeared to be
> > > > > a sleep-in-atomic bug (though it wasn't, for a somewhat-subtle reason).
> > > > >
> > > > > Signed-off-by: Eric Biggers <ebiggers@google.com>
> > > > > Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230208062107.199831-5-ebiggers@kernel.org
> > > > > Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>
> > > >
> > > > Why is this being backported?
> > > >
> > > > - Eric
> > > 
> > > BTW, can you please permanently exclude all commits authored by me from AUTOSEL
> > > so that I don't have to repeatedly complain about every commit individually?
> > > Especially when these mails often come on weekends and holidays.
> 
> Yup, no problem - I'll ignore any commits authored by you.
> 
> > > I know how to use Cc stable, and how to ask explicitly for a stable backport if
> > > I find out after the fact that one is needed.  (And other real people can always
> > > ask too... not counting AUTOSEL, even though you are sending the AUTOSEL emails,
> > > since clearly they go through no or very little human review.)
> 
> One of the challanges here is that it's difficult to solicit reviews or
> really any interaction from authors after a commit lands upstream. Look
> at the response rates to Greg's "FAILED" emails that ask authors to
> provide backports to commits they tagged for stable.

Well, it doesn't help that most of the stable emails aren't sent to the
subsystem's mailing list, but instead just to the individual people mentioned in
the commit.  So many people who would like to help never know about it.

> > > Of course, it's not just me that AUTOSEL isn't working for.  So, you'll still
> > > continue backporting random commits that I have to spend hours bisecting, e.g.
> > > https://lore.kernel.org/stable/20220921155332.234913-7-sashal@kernel.org.
> > > 
> > > But at least I won't have to deal with this garbage for my own commits.
> > > 
> > > Now, I'm not sure I'll get a response to this --- I received no response to my
> > > last AUTOSEL question at
> > > https://lore.kernel.org/stable/Y1DTFiP12ws04eOM@sol.localdomain.  So to
> > > hopefully entice you to actually do something, I'm also letting you know that I
> > > won't be reviewing any AUTOSEL mails for my commits anymore.
> > > 
> > 
> > The really annoying thing is that someone even replied to your AUTOSEL email for
> > that broken patch and told you it is broken
> > (https://lore.kernel.org/stable/d91aaff1-470f-cfdf-41cf-031eea9d6aca@mailbox.org),
> > and ***you ignored it and applied the patch anyway***.
> > 
> > Why are you even sending these emails if you are ignoring feedback anyway?
> 
> I obviously didn't ignore it on purpose, right?
> 

I don't know, is it obvious?  You've said in the past that sometimes you'd like
to backport a commit even if the maintainer objects and/or it is known buggy.
https://lore.kernel.org/stable/d91aaff1-470f-cfdf-41cf-031eea9d6aca@mailbox.org
also didn't explicitly say "Don't backport this" but instead "This patch has
issues", so maybe that made a difference?

Anyway, the fact is that it happened.  And if it happened in the one bug that I
happened to look at because it personally affected me and I spent hours
bisecting, it probably is happening in lots of other cases too.  So it seems the
process is not working...

Separately from responses to the AUTOSEL email, it also seems that you aren't
checking for any reported regressions or pending fixes for a commit before
backporting it.  Simply searching lore for the commit title
https://lore.kernel.org/all/?q=%22drm%2Famdgpu%3A+use+dirty+framebuffer+helper%22
would have turned up the bug report
https://lore.kernel.org/dri-devel/20220918120926.10322-1-user@am64/ that
bisected a regression to that commit, as well as a patch that Fixes that commit:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20220920130832.2214101-1-alexander.deucher@amd.com/
Both of these existed before you even sent the AUTOSEL email!

So to summarize, that buggy commit was backported even though:

  * There were no indications that it was a bug fix (and thus potentially
    suitable for stable) in the first place.
  * On the AUTOSEL thread, someone told you the commit is broken.
  * There was already a thread that reported a regression caused by the commit.
    Easily findable via lore search.
  * There was also already a pending patch that Fixes the commit.  Again easily
    findable via lore search.

So it seems a *lot* of things went wrong, no?  Why?  If so many things can go
wrong, it's not just a "mistake" but rather the process is the problem...

- Eric