[Ksummit-2012-discuss] [ATTEND] stable kernel stuff and grumpy maintainers [bisection/rebase/-next]

[Glauber Costa]

On 06/20/2012 09:19 PM, Luck, Tony wrote:
>> Automated tests on multiple configs are done in linux-next, but by the
>> time they reach linux-next, it might be too late.
>
> This is why I suggested that "-rc5" should be declared as the rebase
> deadline for trees feeding into linux-next ... and that maintainers
> should be ENCOURAGED TO REBASE for any issue where it makes sense.
>
> It is common for build problems to show up with combinations of
> CONFIG options that were not tested by the submitter[1].  Some
> maintainers will do the right thing (IMHO) and fold the fix
> for problems into the original patch series so we do not have
> a bisection break.  Others have seen the "Don't rebase" flames
> that Linus throws out from time to time and have taken that to
> mean that every rebase is evil - those maintainers will tack the
> fix on the top of their tree ... potentially far from the commit
> that caused the problem.
>

I believe having specific trees rebasing for cases like that would help 
a lot.

One of the ways to alleviate the problem of builds breaking on 
configurations other than the submitter's - besides automatic builds - 
is to just let it happen normally, when other people do their builds 
with their configs.

In reality, a build break rarely survives much. So the problem is not 
finding them, is making sure they don't reach non-rebaseable trees.