Re: [RFC] to rebase or not to rebase on linux-next

[Theodore Tso <tytso@mit.edu>]

On Sun, Oct 25, 2009 at 09:53:41PM -0700, Luck, Tony wrote:
> 
> If the "rewind" is simply to add "signed-off-by" notations, update
> commit comments (or code comments) ... then it does seem useful to
> keep the commit chain anchored to the original commit, as the testing
> that has been done is all still valid.
> 
> But as soon as you talk about fixing bugs ... then you ought to
> just do a "rebase".  The code you are adding has changed, so it is
> incorrect to preserve the illusion that these changes have had
> extensive testing against the old commit base.  The code has changed,
> so the testing clock gets reset to zero.

I don't think anyone should (or does?) use the base version of a patch
series as an indication of how much testing a patch series has
received.  It doesn't make much sense.

Suppose I update the 40th patch of a 50th patch series to add check
for kmalloc() returning NULL that had been inadvertently left out, or
some other error checking is added.  Or suppose I add a new tracepoint
definition to a 50 patch series.  Sorry, I'm not going to rewind the
entire patch series because someone thinks the base version of the
patch series somehow is a magic "test clock" indicator....

      	     	     	  	      	     - Ted