Re: How rdma-next gets synchronized with other trees

[Leon Romanovsky <leon@kernel.org>]

On Mon, Jul 15, 2024 at 02:07:00PM +0000, Konstantin Taranov wrote:
> Hi Leon,
> 
> I wanted to ask some questions about the merging process and its schedule.
> 
> Are patches from the net-next applied to the rdma-next during merge windows only?
> A more direct question is I want to send a patch to rdma-next, but it depends on a patch
> in net-next 382d1741b5b2 ("net: mana: Add support for page sizes other than 4KB on ARM64").
> When will this patch be in rdma-next?

RDMA tree follows standard kernel development process, which means that
we start rdma-rc and rdma-next right after (or week later) the merge window
is closed. The exact timing depends on the quality of Linus's master
after merge window ends.

After these branches are created, rdma-rc is used for bug fixes and
rdma-next is used for new features.

We are relatively lax about the quality of bug fixes up to -rc4. After that,
fixes are going under more scrutiny and can/will be applied to rdma-next
if they are not critical.

The rdma-next branch is for features and bug fixes that are not
critical.

> 
> If I sent a patch to rdma-rc, will it be merged to rdma-next later?

Yes, it can be merged to rdma-next later, but you shouldn't rely on it.

It is happening when we are required to merge something from later -rxX,
which already contains your rdma-rc patch. We are not merging
"explicitly" patches from rdma-rc to rdma-next.

> 
> Also is there somewhere a public schedule of merging windows? Or is there a mailing list with
> the merge announcements?

Linus's announcements are on LKML:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/CAHk-=wjV_O2g_K19McjGKrxFxMFDqex+fyGcKc3uac1ft_O2gg@mail.gmail.com/

And semi-joke-semi-real schedule is here:
http://deb.tandrin.de/phb-crystal-ball.htm

It is based on assumption that kernel cycle is 7-8 weeks.

Thanks

> 
> Thanks,
> Konstantin
>