Re: [patch] scsi: revert "[SCSI] Get rid of scsi_cmnd->done"

Ingo Molnar
2008-01-08T16:56:15Z

* James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 2008-01-06 at 17:12 +0100, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> > * James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> wrote:
> >
> > > > The reproducer came to you via Peter Osterlund who has never
> > > > authored a single drivers/scsi/ commit before (according to git-log)
> > > > and who (and here i'm out on a limb guessing it) does not even
> > > > follow linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org.
> > > >
> > > > this bug was obscure and hidden on linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org
> > > > for _months_, (it is a rarely visited and rarely read mailing
> > > > list) and there was just not enough "critical mass" to get this
> > > > issue fixed.
> > >
> > > If I were you, I'd actually make a cursory effort to get my facts
> > > straight before spouting off.
> > >
> > > This bug was actually hidden in bugzilla for ages, where Matthew
> > > Wilcox was trying to deal with it on his own. [...]
> >
> > Huh? The bugzilla just tracked a bug reported to lkml. The very
> > description of the bugzilla says:
> >
> > Subject : v2.6.24-rc2-409-g9418d5d: attempt to access beyond end of device
> > Submitter : Thomas Meyer <thomas@m3y3r.de>
> > References : http://lkml.org/lkml/2007/11/13/250
> >
> > so no, it was evidently not "hidden in bugzilla for ages" - all the
> > important action happened on lkml.
>
> ... and your original accusation was "this bug was obscure and hidden
> on linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org for _months_" which I was pointing out
> wasn't true.

you are right - let me rephrase it as: "this issue was mainly hidden due
to the unhealthy ping-pong between lkml (which you said you didnt read),
linux-scsi and bugzilla".

> Even the original lkml report was obscured by sweeping the report into
> bugzilla and forgetting about it, so in fact, no action happened, even
> on lkml.

all the "action" already happened on the first day of reporting the bug.
(the wrong commit was identified, but that's besides the point - it all
sat inactive after that point. I pinged the bugzilla to get the lkml
discussion active again, not to debug it there.)

what got movement into it all again was the revert.

> Can we stop it with the recriminations and blame shifting now. [...]

what "blame shifting" ???

all i'm worried about here is the long latency for a bugfix which very
apparently (to me) happened due to the isolation of linux-scsi and the
resulting bug processing inefficiencies. Bugs happen and nobody is to be
"blamed" for the bug itself - but the bug processing flow was broken and
i've pointed that out. (If you see similar cases for code i maintain,
and if you can pinpoint the reason why you think it happened and how to
improve that, then please point it out to me as well.)

Ingo