[PATCH] Documentation: talk about "Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org"

[PATCH] Documentation: talk about "Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org"

[Theodore Ts'o]

I couldn't remember whether the canonical marking is stable@kernel.org
or stable@vger.kernel.org, so I went looking, and discovered that it
wasn't mentioned in the kernel sources.  You can find mention of it in
Greg K-H's blog, but not everyone would necessarily find this blog
entry.

Signed-off-by: "Theodore Ts'o" <tytso@mit.edu>
---
 Documentation/SubmittingPatches | 8 +++++++-
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
index c379a2a..d802ee2 100644
--- a/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
+++ b/Documentation/SubmittingPatches
@@ -418,7 +418,13 @@ If a person has had the opportunity to comment on a patch, but has not
 provided such comments, you may optionally add a "Cc:" tag to the patch.
 This is the only tag which might be added without an explicit action by the
 person it names.  This tag documents that potentially interested parties
-have been included in the discussion
+have been included in the discussion.
+
+If a patch is a bug fix which you believe should be backported to the
+stable kernel trees, you should add a simple "Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org>"
+marking in the Signed-off-by: area.  Once the patch hits Linus's tree,
+the patch will be automatically applied to the currently active stable
+trees if possible.  If it does not apply, you will be notified of that fact.
 
 
 14) Using Reported-by:, Tested-by: and Reviewed-by:
-- 
1.7.11.1.108.gb129051

Re: [PATCH] Documentation: talk about "Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org"

[Aaro Koskinen]

Hi,

On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 05:38:50PM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> I couldn't remember whether the canonical marking is stable@kernel.org
> or stable@vger.kernel.org, so I went looking, and discovered that it
> wasn't mentioned in the kernel sources.  You can find mention of it in
> Greg K-H's blog, but not everyone would necessarily find this blog
> entry.

It's documented in Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt.

A.

Re: [PATCH] Documentation: talk about "Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org"

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Sat, Jul 07, 2012 at 12:59:44AM +0300, Aaro Koskinen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 05:38:50PM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> > I couldn't remember whether the canonical marking is stable@kernel.org
> > or stable@vger.kernel.org, so I went looking, and discovered that it
> > wasn't mentioned in the kernel sources.  You can find mention of it in
> > Greg K-H's blog, but not everyone would necessarily find this blog
> > entry.
> 
> It's documented in Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt.

Ah, so it is.   I don't know how I missed that!

       	  	  	     	   	  - Ted

Re: [PATCH] Documentation: talk about "Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org"

[David Rientjes]

On Sat, 7 Jul 2012, Aaro Koskinen wrote:

> > I couldn't remember whether the canonical marking is stable@kernel.org
> > or stable@vger.kernel.org, so I went looking, and discovered that it
> > wasn't mentioned in the kernel sources.  You can find mention of it in
> > Greg K-H's blog, but not everyone would necessarily find this blog
> > entry.
> 
> It's documented in Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt.
> 

I'm wondering if it would be helpful to the stable maintainers if we 
explicitly asked that patches including "Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org" also 
include the version number of the earliest version that the change should 
be backported to?

Andrew and others do this quite often with

	Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org [3.2+]

so perhaps such a convention should be added to the documentation?

Re: [PATCH] Documentation: talk about "Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org"

[Greg KH]

On Mon, Jul 09, 2012 at 03:48:14AM -0700, David Rientjes wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Jul 2012, Aaro Koskinen wrote:
> 
> > > I couldn't remember whether the canonical marking is stable@kernel.org
> > > or stable@vger.kernel.org, so I went looking, and discovered that it
> > > wasn't mentioned in the kernel sources.  You can find mention of it in
> > > Greg K-H's blog, but not everyone would necessarily find this blog
> > > entry.
> > 
> > It's documented in Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt.
> > 
> 
> I'm wondering if it would be helpful to the stable maintainers if we 
> explicitly asked that patches including "Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org" also 
> include the version number of the earliest version that the change should 
> be backported to?

It can be helpful, and in fact, is what is described in the above file
already, although it is often overlooked as it is only part of an
example.

But really, it's usually not needed, I'm more interested in getting more
maintainers to actually start marking patches for stable, that's the
larger problem we are dealing with.  Sorting out after-the-fact which
kernel version a patch is to be applied to is much simpler than finding
the patches in the first place.

thanks,

greg k-h