Re: [GIT PULL] zstd changes for v6.3-rc1

[Nick Terrell <terrelln@meta.com>]

> On Mar 3, 2023, at 9:59 AM, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
> 
> > 
> On Fri, Mar 3, 2023 at 9:54 AM Nick Terrell <terrelln@meta.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I’m sorry, I thought this was standard practice for merging in the mainline branch.
> 
> Absolutely NOT.
> 
> I have harped on "DO NOT DO BACK MERGES" for closer to two _decades_ by now.
> 
> When you do zstd development, you should normally have absolutely
> *ZERO* reason to merge non-zstd work.
> 
>> I’ve been following this article [0], which recommended not rebasing my public
>> trees, so I merged in the mainline kernel instead.
> 
> Half right.
> 
> You should not rebase your public trees.
> 
> But you should not merge mainline either.
> 
> Exactly what relevance does <N> *thousand* driver updates have to zstd?
> 
> There are reasons to merge, but they have to be real, explicit, and
> MENTIONED IN THE MERGE.
> 
> And no, "update to latest" is simply not a reason.
> 
> When close to half the commits are pointless merges that have no
> explanation, I will not pull (if I notice).

Thanks for taking the time to explain, I appreciate it, and will not make the same
mistake again in the future.

What do you prefer I do with my current tree? I guess I can either:
- Leave the merges in and keep a stable tree
- Fix up my tree and clean up the merges, but break the stable tree

Best,
Nick Terrell

>                 Linus