Stable Release Process

Stable Release Process

[Darren Hart]

As the stable releases become first class citizens, we should probably
look at streamlining the process of getting patches to them.

The maintainer for the stable release currently changes by release,
which undoubtedly creates some confusion of where to send patches and
who to CC. These maintainers currently attempt to track these
patches via email filters searching for release branch names and such,
which is proving tedious and prone to missing patches.

Other projects have seen good results using a stable list for this
purpose. This would both make it obvious when a patch is intended for a
stable release as well as remove any confusion about who to Cc as it
would be the same list for all releases. Perhaps something like
openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org?

In addition to the list, some policy would need to be documented on how
to use the list. For example, it should always be Cc'd, and never
emailed with patches directly that don't go first to the master branch.
Backports being the exception. A policy could also be put in place to
aid in automatic processing, such as that employed by the Linux kernel
stable project. The following would request that the patch be applied to
the denzil and danny stable releases:

Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # denzil
Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # danny
Signed-off-by: Darren Hart <dvhart@linux.intel.com>

The advantage here over something like a subject tag, "[danny]" is that
it scales a bit better to sending a patch for multiple releases.

There are certainly other approaches, I mention this one as it has a
proven track record and I don't have a reason to deviate from it.

Thoughts?

-- 
Darren Hart
Intel Open Source Technology Center
Yocto Project - Technical Lead - Linux Kernel

Re: Stable Release Process

[Paul Eggleton]

Hi Darren,

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply to this.

On Wednesday 24 April 2013 10:32:54 Darren Hart wrote:
> As the stable releases become first class citizens, we should probably
> look at streamlining the process of getting patches to them.
> 
> The maintainer for the stable release currently changes by release,
> which undoubtedly creates some confusion of where to send patches and
> who to CC. These maintainers currently attempt to track these
> patches via email filters searching for release branch names and such,
> which is proving tedious and prone to missing patches.
> 
> Other projects have seen good results using a stable list for this
> purpose. This would both make it obvious when a patch is intended for a
> stable release as well as remove any confusion about who to Cc as it
> would be the same list for all releases. Perhaps something like
> openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org?

In the OE-Classic days we used to have an openembedded-stablebranch mailing 
list for the same purpose. I don't recall anyone complaining about that when 
we had it, so this sounds like it could help with the aforementioned issues.

The downside I can see is that it's one more mailing list with the associated 
problems of not everyone monitoring it ("that patch of mine shouldn't have 
been backported!" or "you backported one of my patches but missed an 
associated one"), and new users erroneously emailing it with requests for help 
that should have gone to the normal mailing list. That could however be 
outweighed by the advantage of stable branch patches not being drowned out by 
the rest of the patches as they currently can be.

> In addition to the list, some policy would need to be documented on how
> to use the list. For example, it should always be Cc'd, and never
> emailed with patches directly that don't go first to the master branch.
> Backports being the exception. A policy could also be put in place to
> aid in automatic processing, such as that employed by the Linux kernel
> stable project. The following would request that the patch be applied to
> the denzil and danny stable releases:
> 
> Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # denzil
> Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # danny
> Signed-off-by: Darren Hart <dvhart@linux.intel.com>
> 
> The advantage here over something like a subject tag, "[danny]" is that
> it scales a bit better to sending a patch for multiple releases.
> 
> There are certainly other approaches, I mention this one as it has a
> proven track record and I don't have a reason to deviate from it.

I'm not familiar with this, but I've never had any direct contact with the 
kernel patch submission process so that might explain it. I have to say I'm 
not unhappy with the existing convention we have of marking it in the title of 
the email though.

I'd like to hear more opinions from others, particularly submitters of stable 
branch patches and other stable branch maintainers who have been doing it 
longer than I have. Ping...?

Cheers,
Paul

-- 

Paul Eggleton
Intel Open Source Technology Centre

Re: Stable Release Process

[Darren Hart]

On 05/31/2013 09:34 AM, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> Hi Darren,
> 
> Sorry it's taken me so long to reply to this.
> 
> On Wednesday 24 April 2013 10:32:54 Darren Hart wrote:
>> As the stable releases become first class citizens, we should probably
>> look at streamlining the process of getting patches to them.
>>
>> The maintainer for the stable release currently changes by release,
>> which undoubtedly creates some confusion of where to send patches and
>> who to CC. These maintainers currently attempt to track these
>> patches via email filters searching for release branch names and such,
>> which is proving tedious and prone to missing patches.
>>
>> Other projects have seen good results using a stable list for this
>> purpose. This would both make it obvious when a patch is intended for a
>> stable release as well as remove any confusion about who to Cc as it
>> would be the same list for all releases. Perhaps something like
>> openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org?
> 
> In the OE-Classic days we used to have an openembedded-stablebranch mailing 
> list for the same purpose. I don't recall anyone complaining about that when 
> we had it, so this sounds like it could help with the aforementioned issues.
> 
> The downside I can see is that it's one more mailing list with the associated 
> problems of not everyone monitoring it ("that patch of mine shouldn't have 
> been backported!" or "you backported one of my patches but missed an 
> associated one"),


This is a very valid concern. The Linux Kernel stable tree maintainer
sends out email to the author of all patches he has queued for a stable
update before they hit the tree. This provides a reliable mechanism for
authors to provide feedback.


> and new users erroneously emailing it with requests for help
> that should have gone to the normal mailing list. That could however be 
> outweighed by the advantage of stable branch patches not being drowned out by 
> the rest of the patches as they currently can be.
> 
>> In addition to the list, some policy would need to be documented on how
>> to use the list. For example, it should always be Cc'd, and never
>> emailed with patches directly that don't go first to the master branch.
>> Backports being the exception. A policy could also be put in place to
>> aid in automatic processing, such as that employed by the Linux kernel
>> stable project. The following would request that the patch be applied to
>> the denzil and danny stable releases:
>>
>> Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # denzil
>> Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # danny
>> Signed-off-by: Darren Hart <dvhart@linux.intel.com>
>>
>> The advantage here over something like a subject tag, "[danny]" is that
>> it scales a bit better to sending a patch for multiple releases.
>>
>> There are certainly other approaches, I mention this one as it has a
>> proven track record and I don't have a reason to deviate from it.
> 
> I'm not familiar with this, but I've never had any direct contact with the 
> kernel patch submission process so that might explain it. I have to say I'm 


I understand we are not the Linux kernel community and we need to take
our own priorities and needs into account when definining our process.
However, just for reference (learn from history or be doomed to repeat
it and all that), here are the Linux kernel stable rules:

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt?id=refs/tags/v3.10-rc3

Personally, I believe it to be a fairly sound process.


> not unhappy with the existing convention we have of marking it in the title of 
> the email though.
> 
> I'd like to hear more opinions from others, particularly submitters of stable 
> branch patches and other stable branch maintainers who have been doing it 
> longer than I have. Ping...?

Agreed.

-- 
Darren Hart
Intel Open Source Technology Center
Yocto Project - Technical Lead - Linux Kernel

Re: Stable Release Process

[Martin Jansa]

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On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 05:34:51PM +0100, Paul Eggleton wrote:
> Hi Darren,
> 
> Sorry it's taken me so long to reply to this.
> 
> On Wednesday 24 April 2013 10:32:54 Darren Hart wrote:
> > As the stable releases become first class citizens, we should probably
> > look at streamlining the process of getting patches to them.
> > 
> > The maintainer for the stable release currently changes by release,
> > which undoubtedly creates some confusion of where to send patches and
> > who to CC. These maintainers currently attempt to track these
> > patches via email filters searching for release branch names and such,
> > which is proving tedious and prone to missing patches.
> > 
> > Other projects have seen good results using a stable list for this
> > purpose. This would both make it obvious when a patch is intended for a
> > stable release as well as remove any confusion about who to Cc as it
> > would be the same list for all releases. Perhaps something like
> > openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org?
> 
> In the OE-Classic days we used to have an openembedded-stablebranch mailing 
> list for the same purpose. I don't recall anyone complaining about that when 
> we had it, so this sounds like it could help with the aforementioned issues.
> 
> The downside I can see is that it's one more mailing list with the associated 
> problems of not everyone monitoring it ("that patch of mine shouldn't have 
> been backported!" or "you backported one of my patches but missed an 
> associated one"), and new users erroneously emailing it with requests for help 
> that should have gone to the normal mailing list. That could however be 
> outweighed by the advantage of stable branch patches not being drowned out by 
> the rest of the patches as they currently can be.
> 
> > In addition to the list, some policy would need to be documented on how
> > to use the list. For example, it should always be Cc'd, and never
> > emailed with patches directly that don't go first to the master branch.
> > Backports being the exception. A policy could also be put in place to
> > aid in automatic processing, such as that employed by the Linux kernel
> > stable project. The following would request that the patch be applied to
> > the denzil and danny stable releases:
> > 
> > Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # denzil
> > Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # danny
> > Signed-off-by: Darren Hart <dvhart@linux.intel.com>
> > 
> > The advantage here over something like a subject tag, "[danny]" is that
> > it scales a bit better to sending a patch for multiple releases.
> > 
> > There are certainly other approaches, I mention this one as it has a
> > proven track record and I don't have a reason to deviate from it.
> 
> I'm not familiar with this, but I've never had any direct contact with the 
> kernel patch submission process so that might explain it. I have to say I'm 
> not unhappy with the existing convention we have of marking it in the title of 
> the email though.
> 
> I'd like to hear more opinions from others, particularly submitters of stable 
> branch patches and other stable branch maintainers who have been doing it 
> longer than I have. Ping...?

I like subject tags, at least because they are nicely shown in patchwork
subject, so I can easily sort incoming patches to right bundles.

And this problem with scaling when sending a patch for multiple
releases we already have when tagging multiple affected layers (which happens
more often for meta-oe layers then multiple releases).

-- 
Martin 'JaMa' Jansa     jabber: Martin.Jansa@gmail.com

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Re: Stable Release Process

[Darren Hart]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1



On 05/31/2013 10:34 AM, Martin Jansa wrote:
> On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 05:34:51PM +0100, Paul Eggleton wrote:
>> Hi Darren,
>> 
>> Sorry it's taken me so long to reply to this.
>> 
>> On Wednesday 24 April 2013 10:32:54 Darren Hart wrote:
>>> As the stable releases become first class citizens, we should
>>> probably look at streamlining the process of getting patches to
>>> them.
>>> 
>>> The maintainer for the stable release currently changes by
>>> release, which undoubtedly creates some confusion of where to
>>> send patches and who to CC. These maintainers currently attempt
>>> to track these patches via email filters searching for release
>>> branch names and such, which is proving tedious and prone to
>>> missing patches.
>>> 
>>> Other projects have seen good results using a stable list for
>>> this purpose. This would both make it obvious when a patch is
>>> intended for a stable release as well as remove any confusion
>>> about who to Cc as it would be the same list for all releases.
>>> Perhaps something like 
>>> openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org?
>> 
>> In the OE-Classic days we used to have an
>> openembedded-stablebranch mailing list for the same purpose. I
>> don't recall anyone complaining about that when we had it, so
>> this sounds like it could help with the aforementioned issues.
>> 
>> The downside I can see is that it's one more mailing list with
>> the associated problems of not everyone monitoring it ("that
>> patch of mine shouldn't have been backported!" or "you backported
>> one of my patches but missed an associated one"), and new users
>> erroneously emailing it with requests for help that should have
>> gone to the normal mailing list. That could however be outweighed
>> by the advantage of stable branch patches not being drowned out
>> by the rest of the patches as they currently can be.
>> 
>>> In addition to the list, some policy would need to be
>>> documented on how to use the list. For example, it should
>>> always be Cc'd, and never emailed with patches directly that
>>> don't go first to the master branch. Backports being the
>>> exception. A policy could also be put in place to aid in
>>> automatic processing, such as that employed by the Linux
>>> kernel stable project. The following would request that the
>>> patch be applied to the denzil and danny stable releases:
>>> 
>>> Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # denzil 
>>> Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # danny 
>>> Signed-off-by: Darren Hart <dvhart@linux.intel.com>
>>> 
>>> The advantage here over something like a subject tag, "[danny]"
>>> is that it scales a bit better to sending a patch for multiple
>>> releases.
>>> 
>>> There are certainly other approaches, I mention this one as it
>>> has a proven track record and I don't have a reason to deviate
>>> from it.
>> 
>> I'm not familiar with this, but I've never had any direct contact
>> with the kernel patch submission process so that might explain
>> it. I have to say I'm not unhappy with the existing convention we
>> have of marking it in the title of the email though.
>> 
>> I'd like to hear more opinions from others, particularly
>> submitters of stable branch patches and other stable branch
>> maintainers who have been doing it longer than I have. Ping...?
> 
> I like subject tags, at least because they are nicely shown in
> patchwork subject, so I can easily sort incoming patches to right
> bundles.
> 
> And this problem with scaling when sending a patch for multiple 
> releases we already have when tagging multiple affected layers
> (which happens more often for meta-oe layers then multiple
> releases).

It has been expressed that this has been challenging to enforce
(anything that is freeform is). Do you have any suggestions on how we
could address that? Documentation? Firm maintainer policy of willfully
ignoring non-tagged patches?

Thanks,

- -- 
Darren Hart
Intel Open Source Technology Center
Yocto Project - Technical Lead - Linux Kernel
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Re: Stable Release Process

[Koen Kooi]

Op 31 mei 2013, om 19:44 heeft Darren Hart <dvhart@linux.intel.com> het volgende geschreven:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> 
> 
> On 05/31/2013 10:34 AM, Martin Jansa wrote:
>> On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 05:34:51PM +0100, Paul Eggleton wrote:
>>> Hi Darren,
>>> 
>>> Sorry it's taken me so long to reply to this.
>>> 
>>> On Wednesday 24 April 2013 10:32:54 Darren Hart wrote:
>>>> As the stable releases become first class citizens, we should
>>>> probably look at streamlining the process of getting patches to
>>>> them.
>>>> 
>>>> The maintainer for the stable release currently changes by
>>>> release, which undoubtedly creates some confusion of where to
>>>> send patches and who to CC. These maintainers currently attempt
>>>> to track these patches via email filters searching for release
>>>> branch names and such, which is proving tedious and prone to
>>>> missing patches.
>>>> 
>>>> Other projects have seen good results using a stable list for
>>>> this purpose. This would both make it obvious when a patch is
>>>> intended for a stable release as well as remove any confusion
>>>> about who to Cc as it would be the same list for all releases.
>>>> Perhaps something like 
>>>> openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org?
>>> 
>>> In the OE-Classic days we used to have an
>>> openembedded-stablebranch mailing list for the same purpose. I
>>> don't recall anyone complaining about that when we had it, so
>>> this sounds like it could help with the aforementioned issues.
>>> 
>>> The downside I can see is that it's one more mailing list with
>>> the associated problems of not everyone monitoring it ("that
>>> patch of mine shouldn't have been backported!" or "you backported
>>> one of my patches but missed an associated one"), and new users
>>> erroneously emailing it with requests for help that should have
>>> gone to the normal mailing list. That could however be outweighed
>>> by the advantage of stable branch patches not being drowned out
>>> by the rest of the patches as they currently can be.
>>> 
>>>> In addition to the list, some policy would need to be
>>>> documented on how to use the list. For example, it should
>>>> always be Cc'd, and never emailed with patches directly that
>>>> don't go first to the master branch. Backports being the
>>>> exception. A policy could also be put in place to aid in
>>>> automatic processing, such as that employed by the Linux
>>>> kernel stable project. The following would request that the
>>>> patch be applied to the denzil and danny stable releases:
>>>> 
>>>> Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # denzil 
>>>> Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # danny 
>>>> Signed-off-by: Darren Hart <dvhart@linux.intel.com>
>>>> 
>>>> The advantage here over something like a subject tag, "[danny]"
>>>> is that it scales a bit better to sending a patch for multiple
>>>> releases.
>>>> 
>>>> There are certainly other approaches, I mention this one as it
>>>> has a proven track record and I don't have a reason to deviate
>>>> from it.
>>> 
>>> I'm not familiar with this, but I've never had any direct contact
>>> with the kernel patch submission process so that might explain
>>> it. I have to say I'm not unhappy with the existing convention we
>>> have of marking it in the title of the email though.
>>> 
>>> I'd like to hear more opinions from others, particularly
>>> submitters of stable branch patches and other stable branch
>>> maintainers who have been doing it longer than I have. Ping...?
>> 
>> I like subject tags, at least because they are nicely shown in
>> patchwork subject, so I can easily sort incoming patches to right
>> bundles.
>> 
>> And this problem with scaling when sending a patch for multiple 
>> releases we already have when tagging multiple affected layers
>> (which happens more often for meta-oe layers then multiple
>> releases).
> 
> It has been expressed that this has been challenging to enforce
> (anything that is freeform is). Do you have any suggestions on how we
> could address that? Documentation? Firm maintainer policy of willfully
> ignoring non-tagged patches?

An email saying "wrong tag, please read README and resubmit" followed by willfully ignoring wrong tags has worked quite well in the past. But only if the README clearly states the tags needed and has a sample git-send-email cmdline.

regards,

Koen

Re: Stable Release Process

[Philip Balister]

On 06/03/2013 02:00 AM, Koen Kooi wrote:
> 
> Op 31 mei 2013, om 19:44 heeft Darren Hart <dvhart@linux.intel.com> het volgende geschreven:
> 
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>>
>>
>> On 05/31/2013 10:34 AM, Martin Jansa wrote:
>>> On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 05:34:51PM +0100, Paul Eggleton wrote:
>>>> Hi Darren,
>>>>
>>>> Sorry it's taken me so long to reply to this.
>>>>
>>>> On Wednesday 24 April 2013 10:32:54 Darren Hart wrote:
>>>>> As the stable releases become first class citizens, we should
>>>>> probably look at streamlining the process of getting patches to
>>>>> them.
>>>>>
>>>>> The maintainer for the stable release currently changes by
>>>>> release, which undoubtedly creates some confusion of where to
>>>>> send patches and who to CC. These maintainers currently attempt
>>>>> to track these patches via email filters searching for release
>>>>> branch names and such, which is proving tedious and prone to
>>>>> missing patches.
>>>>>
>>>>> Other projects have seen good results using a stable list for
>>>>> this purpose. This would both make it obvious when a patch is
>>>>> intended for a stable release as well as remove any confusion
>>>>> about who to Cc as it would be the same list for all releases.
>>>>> Perhaps something like 
>>>>> openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org?
>>>>
>>>> In the OE-Classic days we used to have an
>>>> openembedded-stablebranch mailing list for the same purpose. I
>>>> don't recall anyone complaining about that when we had it, so
>>>> this sounds like it could help with the aforementioned issues.
>>>>
>>>> The downside I can see is that it's one more mailing list with
>>>> the associated problems of not everyone monitoring it ("that
>>>> patch of mine shouldn't have been backported!" or "you backported
>>>> one of my patches but missed an associated one"), and new users
>>>> erroneously emailing it with requests for help that should have
>>>> gone to the normal mailing list. That could however be outweighed
>>>> by the advantage of stable branch patches not being drowned out
>>>> by the rest of the patches as they currently can be.
>>>>
>>>>> In addition to the list, some policy would need to be
>>>>> documented on how to use the list. For example, it should
>>>>> always be Cc'd, and never emailed with patches directly that
>>>>> don't go first to the master branch. Backports being the
>>>>> exception. A policy could also be put in place to aid in
>>>>> automatic processing, such as that employed by the Linux
>>>>> kernel stable project. The following would request that the
>>>>> patch be applied to the denzil and danny stable releases:
>>>>>
>>>>> Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # denzil 
>>>>> Cc: <openembedded-core-stable@lists.openembedded.org> # danny 
>>>>> Signed-off-by: Darren Hart <dvhart@linux.intel.com>
>>>>>
>>>>> The advantage here over something like a subject tag, "[danny]"
>>>>> is that it scales a bit better to sending a patch for multiple
>>>>> releases.
>>>>>
>>>>> There are certainly other approaches, I mention this one as it
>>>>> has a proven track record and I don't have a reason to deviate
>>>>> from it.
>>>>
>>>> I'm not familiar with this, but I've never had any direct contact
>>>> with the kernel patch submission process so that might explain
>>>> it. I have to say I'm not unhappy with the existing convention we
>>>> have of marking it in the title of the email though.
>>>>
>>>> I'd like to hear more opinions from others, particularly
>>>> submitters of stable branch patches and other stable branch
>>>> maintainers who have been doing it longer than I have. Ping...?
>>>
>>> I like subject tags, at least because they are nicely shown in
>>> patchwork subject, so I can easily sort incoming patches to right
>>> bundles.
>>>
>>> And this problem with scaling when sending a patch for multiple 
>>> releases we already have when tagging multiple affected layers
>>> (which happens more often for meta-oe layers then multiple
>>> releases).
>>
>> It has been expressed that this has been challenging to enforce
>> (anything that is freeform is). Do you have any suggestions on how we
>> could address that? Documentation? Firm maintainer policy of willfully
>> ignoring non-tagged patches?
> 
> An email saying "wrong tag, please read README and resubmit" followed by willfully ignoring wrong tags has worked quite well in the past. But only if the README clearly states the tags needed and has a sample git-send-email cmdline.

I find the sample git send-email line in the README to be a huge help
for me.

Philip

Re: Stable Release Process

[Darren Hart]

On 06/03/2013 04:18 AM, Philip Balister wrote:
> On 06/03/2013 02:00 AM, Koen Kooi wrote:
>>
>> Op 31 mei 2013, om 19:44 heeft Darren Hart <dvhart@linux.intel.com> het volgende geschreven:

>>>> I like subject tags, at least because they are nicely shown in
>>>> patchwork subject, so I can easily sort incoming patches to right
>>>> bundles.
>>>>
>>>> And this problem with scaling when sending a patch for multiple 
>>>> releases we already have when tagging multiple affected layers
>>>> (which happens more often for meta-oe layers then multiple
>>>> releases).
>>>
>>> It has been expressed that this has been challenging to enforce
>>> (anything that is freeform is). Do you have any suggestions on how we
>>> could address that? Documentation? Firm maintainer policy of willfully
>>> ignoring non-tagged patches?
>>
>> An email saying "wrong tag, please read README and resubmit"
>> followed by willfully ignoring wrong tags has worked quite well in
>> the past. But only if the README clearly states the tags needed and
>> has a sample git-send-email cmdline.
> 
> I find the sample git send-email line in the README to be a huge
> help for me.
> 
> Philip
> 

In my experience with this project and our maintainers, they are
exceptionally good-natured and eager to help compared to some other
projects. There would definitely be a painful period as they tried to
resist reminding people and just pulling the patch in anyway. I think it
could work, but we would have to be firm about it and document it well.
Some kind of a stable-release.txt README is definitely in order.

I went to check oe-core for some kind of existing documentation on
policies and came up empty. Perhaps just documenting this
pseudo-existing policy in a place where developers are likely to find it
and can be easily referred to would be a good first step.

-- 
Darren Hart
Intel Open Source Technology Center
Yocto Project - Technical Lead - Linux Kernel