Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752724Ab3HUSgJ (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 Aug 2013 14:36:09 -0400 Received: from mail-vc0-f180.google.com ([209.85.220.180]:42864 "EHLO mail-vc0-f180.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752497Ab3HUSgH (ORCPT ); Wed, 21 Aug 2013 14:36:07 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <521504D7.7090204@wwwdotorg.org> References: <20130820224032.GA20491@kroah.com> <521504D7.7090204@wwwdotorg.org> Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 11:36:05 -0700 X-Google-Sender-Auth: QJdwc7yZV9irGT48uBkcwtJYs98 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Proposed stable release changes From: Linus Torvalds To: Stephen Warren Cc: Greg KH , Andrew Morton , stable , lwn@lwn.net, Guenter Roeck , Hugh Dickins , Johannes Berg , Borislav Petkov , Linux Kernel Mailing List Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1650 Lines: 35 On Wed, Aug 21, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Stephen Warren wrote: > On 08/20/2013 04:40 PM, Greg KH wrote: > > Presumably the idea is that much useful testing only happens on -rc > kernels rather than linux-next or arbitrary points in Linus' tree. Linux-next gets little to no testing outside of compiles. And I don't think the -rc releases are all that important either. The important part is to _wait_. Not "wait for an -rc". There are reasonable number of developers and users who actually run git kernels, just because they want to help. At rc points, you tend to get a few more of those. In contrast, when patches get moved from the development tree to stable within a day or two, that patch has gotten basically _no_ testing in some cases (or rather, it's been tested to fix the thing it was supposed to fix, but then there are surprising new problems that it introduces that nobody even though about, and wasn't tested for). So I don't think "is in an rc release" is the important thing. I think "has been in the standard git tree for at least a week" is what we should aim for. Will it catch all cases? Hell no. We don't have *that* many people who run git kernels, and even people who do don't tend to update daily anyway. But at least this kind of embarrassing "We found a bug within almost minutes of it hitting mainline" should not make it into stable. Linus -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/