From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-1.web.codeaurora.org [10.30.226.201]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 18F301DC747 for ; Mon, 7 Apr 2025 14:25:58 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1744035958; cv=none; b=Gfm6uWuEIFmMPVHiENpJ3pN8bY8xSaPfiG5kxT846KIDB2sStEmQYJ1EfHiFCb4cXqb1Z6ujYkJlaDxjBRm15mleRREe20idmUov6SPlhl2AT8qrcxk2QW7hz8z8oEcJtEsN6gHrHwL0feQKcFRXTkUKwCxxF9vgmDTGH2TruHM= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1744035958; c=relaxed/simple; bh=1yXNh3ivOOtRZ30oyz2D2IxLO8ipKlgxOXxrcCQb6sg=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=s4vEPFkIrqXbLJEHmJvSFdOX269F7g6X4ZLOpo0LJCX0LGE+PVcIP3uw96RZCSArCavVUhoWXoKHcGh3HDnjKE8xg5LvQJDSNoYdclSRdI3cVHTXUrQr5nU46ofrpMuzzjyVyXf7+68pf7CBGt9AENwFGZlzI0aHNgz+h67C5SE= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=d9VLy3hm; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="d9VLy3hm" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C02CBC4CEDD; Mon, 7 Apr 2025 14:25:57 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1744035958; bh=1yXNh3ivOOtRZ30oyz2D2IxLO8ipKlgxOXxrcCQb6sg=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=d9VLy3hmX89acpLnMPvKZuPuo9uPLZoywDKWPO1FXBL7r7dFjrqWTRFzjZi4TQsqV 6hbw5LPbXyvTvGiJuNJgdV0C39VGnqWDF0+MuhkYH1buTk4HxNqkkACwnAB4kb5NRZ y5CmIXUAFBXvoZPvDPLw5PT9NTPybDOPzs6JY5lk1pxYtjqdk2Wh3i5T9NGfPQIiq8 jWe3zUqxRiLxg39RGnJVCIlO9+SHJFBfCuo6uX7JPW7upPrlV2NLQnwEYfMRQIXWmA HB/Qfd0B7w+klcfOdsPRvXJcpTPD851VZ9ZYno8GSq9wVyaX2YVKqyL1wLRN560WeO ys1C7M/C3tbMw== Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2025 10:25:54 -0400 From: Sasha Levin To: "gregkh@linuxfoundation.org" Cc: "Manthey, Norbert" , "stable@vger.kernel.org" Subject: Re: Improving Linux Commit Backporting Message-ID: References: <2025040348-living-blurred-eb56@gregkh> <2025040348-grant-unstylish-a78b@gregkh> <2025040311-overstate-satin-1a8f@gregkh> Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: stable@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <2025040311-overstate-satin-1a8f@gregkh> On Thu, Apr 03, 2025 at 03:51:25PM +0100, gregkh@linuxfoundation.org wrote: >On Thu, Apr 03, 2025 at 02:57:34PM +0100, gregkh@linuxfoundation.org wrote: >> On Thu, Apr 03, 2025 at 02:45:35PM +0100, gregkh@linuxfoundation.org wrote: >> > On Thu, Apr 03, 2025 at 01:15:28PM +0000, Manthey, Norbert wrote: >> > > Dear Linux Stable Maintainers, >> > > >> > > while maintaining downstream Linux releases, we noticed that we have to >> > > backport some patches manually, because they are not picked up by your >> > > automated backporting. Some of these backports can be done with >> > > improved cherry-pick tooling. We have implemented a script/tool "git- >> > > fuzzy-pick" which we would like to share. Besides picking more commits, >> > > the tool also supports executing a validation script right after >> > > picking, e.g. compiling the modified source file. Picking stats and >> > > details are presented below. >> > > >> > > We would like to discuss whether you can integrate this improved tool >> > > into into your daily workflows. We already found the stable-tools >> > > repository [1] with some scripts that help automate backporting. To >> > > contribute git-fuzzy-pick there, we would need you to declare a license >> > > for the current state of this repository. >> > >> > There's no need for us to declare the license for the whole repo, you >> > just need to pick a license for your script to be under. Anything >> > that's under a valid open source license is fine with me. >> > >> > That being said, I did just go and add SPDX license lines to all of the >> > scripts that I wrote, or that was already defined in the comments of the >> > files, to make it more obvious what they are under. >> >> Wait, you should be looking at the scripts in the stable-queue.git tree >> in the scripts/ directory. You pointed at a private repo of some things >> that Sasha uses for his work, which is specific to his workflow. > >Also, one final things. Doing backports to older kernels is a harder >task than doing it for newer kernels. This means you need to do more >work, and have a more experienced developer do that work, as the nuances >are tricky and slight and they must understand the code base really >well. > >Attempting to automate this, and make it a "junior developer" task >assignment is ripe for errors and problems and tears (on my side and >yours.) We have loads of examples of this in the past, please don't >duplicate the errors of others and think that "somehow, this time it >will be different!", but rather "learn from our past mistakes and only >make new ones." > >Good luck with backporting, as I know just how hard of a task this >really is. And obviously, you are learning that too :) I've played with wiggle[1] in the past, which does all what you've described and more. It introduced too many issues, where it wasn't worth doing it. I really think that the better solution here is to figure out dependencies and bring them in. I'd advise against using such tool at the scale of -stable :) [1] https://github.com/neilbrown/wiggle -- Thanks, Sasha