Re: Handling of patches missing in stable releases based on Fixes: tags

[Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Sat, Mar 21, 2020 at 09:13:47AM -0700, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> we now have a script that identifies patches in stable releases which were
> later fixed upstream, but the fix was not applied to the respective stable
> releases. We identify such patches based on Fixes: tags in the upstream
> kernel.

THat's great.

> Example: Upstream commit c54c7374ff4 ("drm/dp_mst: Skip validating ports
> during destruction, just ref") was applied to v4.4.y as commit 05d994f68019.
> It was later reverted upstream with commit 9765635b307, but the revert has
> (at least not yet) found its way into v4.4.y.
> 
> This is an easy example, where the revert should (or at least I think it
> should) be applied to v4.4.y (and possibly to later kernels - I didn't check).
> A more tricky patch is commit 3ef240eaff36 ("futex: Prevent exit livelock")
> in v5.4.y, which was later fixed upstream with commit 51bfb1d11d6 ("futex:
> Fix kernel-doc notation warning"). I am not entirely sure what to do with
> that, given that it only fixes documentation (though that may of course also
> be valuable).
> 
> How should we handle this ? Would it be ok to send half-automated requests
> to the stable mailing list, for example with basic test results ?

Sure, half-automated requests are fine, send them on!

thanks,

greg k-h