Re: 2.6.19 -mm merge plans

David Miller
2006-09-21T22:44:05Z

From: Dave Jones <davej@redhat.com>
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 18:05:39 -0400

> On Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 02:52:08PM -0700, David Miller wrote:
>
> > I think the even/odd idea is great, personally. And if this
> > makes some people have to wait a little bit longer for their
> > favorite feature to get merged, that's tough. :-)
>
> My concern is that people will 'sit out' the even stage, and
> just accumulate stuff in a single tree they dump once when
> every odd release opens up.

At least they would be dumping on top of "mostly working".
I kind of like that. It breeds more confidence into the
tree having been working before the dump took place, thus
making the isolation of cause much easier.

> We already have some subsystems that do once-per-release merges,
> and then let fixes build up in their out-of-tree SCM for months
> until the next window. It won't necessarily get worse, but unless
> everyone is participating in the odd/even rules, we won't get
> the benefits that it would offer.

Having odd/even rules kind of adds legitimacy to the per-tree folks
doing the same. This avoids situations like "why is XXX being an
asshole with his tree, when there are other trees merging new
features this round?". Having buy-in from everyone is very useful
and gets folks in the correct mindset.