From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on aws-us-west-2-korg-lkml-1.web.codeaurora.org Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [23.128.96.18]) by smtp.lore.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8E64CCA0ECA for ; Tue, 12 Sep 2023 08:15:33 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S232002AbjILIPg (ORCPT ); Tue, 12 Sep 2023 04:15:36 -0400 Received: from lindbergh.monkeyblade.net ([23.128.96.19]:57906 "EHLO lindbergh.monkeyblade.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S232389AbjILIP0 (ORCPT ); Tue, 12 Sep 2023 04:15:26 -0400 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (relay.kernel.org [52.25.139.140]) by lindbergh.monkeyblade.net (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 460E410C3 for ; Tue, 12 Sep 2023 01:15:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 60D85C433C8; Tue, 12 Sep 2023 08:15:21 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=linuxfoundation.org; s=korg; t=1694506521; bh=H+7L0I/t4we003ZgFkfZhvCJbbS8rbPE3wprlcWqQy4=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=Pg1BT/lVKzjZjlsT7YjQzd3bfSH1ZKCxY62nCgzo12PFzAJT48imtcRPjl3HHFWC5 V4Qn0ca2z7+y8byAOamJGWaK25F2YJ5/bY8iIStqbU0TYfHZHZGf1710/S/SoBe4Y5 F6TFXwaNhlMB62p+BT9vYDpP70OSvDXZXzEUfJyA= Date: Tue, 12 Sep 2023 10:15:18 +0200 From: Greg Kroah-Hartman To: Donald Buczek Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org, Stephen Hemminger , David Ahern , Nikolay Aleksandrov , "David S. Miller" , Paul Menzel Subject: Re: [PATCH 5.15 052/107] Remove DECnet support from kernel Message-ID: <2023091210-irritably-bottle-84cd@gregkh> References: <20230619102141.541044823@linuxfoundation.org> <20230619102143.987013167@linuxfoundation.org> <6084b5fc-577c-468a-a28e-e0ccc530ed9e@molgen.mpg.de> <2023091117-unripe-ceremony-c29a@gregkh> <1be4b005-edfe-5faa-4907-f1e9738cc43a@molgen.mpg.de> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1be4b005-edfe-5faa-4907-f1e9738cc43a@molgen.mpg.de> Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: stable@vger.kernel.org On Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 09:47:40AM +0200, Donald Buczek wrote: > On 9/11/23 15:54, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: > > We have never guaranteed that Kconfig options will never change in > > stable kernel releases, sorry. > > I didn't want to imply that and I don't expect it. > > It's just _if_ stable really gradually opens up to anything (like code > removals, backports of new features, heuristically or AI selected > patches, performance patches) it IMO loses its function and we could > as well follow mainline, which, I think, is what you are recommending > anyway. When code is removed from stable kernel versions, it is usually for very good reasons, like what happened here. Sorry I can't go into details, but you really wanted this out of your kernel, this was a bugfix :) > We've had bad surprises with more or less every mainline releases > while updates in a stable series could be trusted to go 99% without > thinking. Keeping productions systems on some latest stable gave us > the time to identifying and fix problems with newer series before > making it the designated series for all systems. This worked well. > > If the policy of stable gradually changes, that's tough luck for us. I > wouldn't complain but it would be good to know. And maybe > Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rs should be reviewed. If the policy changes, we will change that document, but for now, we are backporting only bugfixes that are found through explicit tagging, developer requests, manual patch review, and "compare this commit to past commits that were accepted" matching which then gets manual review. thanks, greg k-h