Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932119AbWATUBK (ORCPT ); Fri, 20 Jan 2006 15:01:10 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932122AbWATUBK (ORCPT ); Fri, 20 Jan 2006 15:01:10 -0500 Received: from caramon.arm.linux.org.uk ([212.18.232.186]:26889 "EHLO caramon.arm.linux.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932119AbWATUBI (ORCPT ); Fri, 20 Jan 2006 15:01:08 -0500 Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:00:52 +0000 From: Russell King To: Michael Loftis Cc: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, dtor_core@ameritech.net, James Courtier-Dutton , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Development tree, PLEASE? Message-ID: <20060120200051.GA12610@flint.arm.linux.org.uk> Mail-Followup-To: Michael Loftis , Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, dtor_core@ameritech.net, James Courtier-Dutton , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <43D10FF8.8090805@superbug.co.uk> <6769FDC09295B7E6078A5089@d216-220-25-20.dynip.modwest.com> <30D11C032F1FC0FE9CA1CDFD@d216-220-25-20.dynip.modwest.com> <200601201903.k0KJ3qI7006425@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2066 Lines: 43 On Fri, Jan 20, 2006 at 12:21:40PM -0700, Michael Loftis wrote: > I think that it's fine to push the maintenance effort away from the > mainline developers, probably even desireable, but then the bugfixing/etc > tends to happen in a disparate manner, off on lots of forks at different > places without them making their way back to some central place. The responsibility for ensuring that those bugfixes get back to "some central place" is with the folk who created the bugfixes. I've seen this _far_ too many times - it's what I call "the CVS disease" and it happens _a_ _lot_ in certain areas. Developer X uses a CVS tree for his work and has write access to that tree. He finds a bug, and fixes it. Maybe he writes a good explaination of the bug and puts it in the CVS commit comments. He commits the fix. When he's done with development, he walks away and the fix never gets submitted. (Not everyone operates this way, but I know some do.) As a mainline guy myself, I'll say we're all welcome to whatever bug fixes come our way. We just need someone to send them to us with an adequate explaination of the bug. > And that seems where we're going with this conversation. A fork/forks at > various versions to maintain bugfixes and support updates that's (more?) > open to submitters writing patches. Maintained by a separate group or > party, but with the 'blessing' from mainline to do so. A place for those > sorts of efforts to be focused, without necessarily involving the primary > developers. Do you know about the bugfix-only kernel series, which have 4-digit versions - 2.6.x.y - which is the compromise to satisfy folk with the issue you're bringing up in this paragraph? -- Russell King Linux kernel 2.6 ARM Linux - http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/ maintainer of: 2.6 Serial core - 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/