Re: release plan for mdadm

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

On 02.03.2021 23:50, Jes Sorensen wrote:
> On 1/27/21 6:39 AM, 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.
> 
> Hi Mariusz,
> 
> Sorry for the slow response. Our daughter was born in late December and
> I was on paternity leave through Feb 5, so still catching up. I also
> switched teams at work back in July so my focus was shifted.
Hi Jes,
Congratulations:)
> 
> I'd very much like to see a release, and we should do one quick. Doing
> more regular releases will also make it easier to ship them, so I am not
> against that at all.
> 
> I am not aware of anything major pending right now, so if we can get
> focus on any pending patches and get them in over the next week or two,
> then I can cut an -rc and we can do a release soon. Especially if you
> can help out regression testing the -rc candidate(s).
> 
> Cheers,
> Jes
> 
Thanks for answer. Please review all patches in queue, and mark -rc.
Then I will schedule regression.

Mariusz