Re: release plan for mdadm

["Tkaczyk, Mariusz" <mariusz.tkaczyk@linux.intel.com>]

On 27.01.2021 12:39, Tkaczyk, Mariusz wrote:
> Hi Jes,
> 
> It's been a while since last mdadm release. Mdadm-4.2 release that was
> mentioned back in July does not happened yet. It's getting messy to
> manage mdadm across multiple distributions.
> 
> Also, not all OSVs are willing to cherry-pick the patches, especially
> for stable project - like mdadm, so only critical bugfixes are landing
> in the distros.
> As a result - new OSes has various forks of mdadm-4.1 and the difference
> is growing with every backported patch. It leads us to situation where
> those forks may have own bugs, caused by many missing bugfixes or wrongly
> resolved merge conflicts.
> To be honest - it becomes more and more problematic for us to track all
> fixes in different supported distros.
> 
> We are searching for solutions for those problems and we are counting on
> your support:
> Short term - is there any way that we can help you to release next version
> of mdadm soon?
> 
> Long term - what do you think about smaller, more frequent releases of
> mdadm? Maybe twice a year is an option (similar to RedHat/Ubuntu
> schedule)? That would be better for us and for vendors. They will need
> to follow upstream instead resolving bugs reported by us or community.
> 
> The benefits will be gained by everyone. User will get up-to-date
> software much faster, with minimal vendor input and modifications.
> Mdadm bugs will be predictable across distros. We could help with
> testing IMSM and basic functionality of native metadata.
> 
> What are your thoughts?
> Regards,
> Mariusz

Hi Jes,
Any feedback?

Mariusz