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Date:   Thu, 4 Jun 2020 18:29:16 +0200 (CEST)
From:   Julia Lawall <julia.lawall@inria.fr>
To:     Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>
cc:     Dan Carpenter <dan.carpenter@oracle.com>,
        Julia Lawall <julia.lawall@inria.fr>,
        Linus Walleij <linus.walleij@linaro.org>,
        Christophe JAILLET <christophe.jaillet@wanadoo.fr>,
        Robert Jarzmik <robert.jarzmik@free.fr>,
        Daniel Mack <daniel@zonque.org>,
        Haojian Zhuang <haojian.zhuang@gmail.com>,
        Linux ARM <linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org>,
        "open list:GPIO SUBSYSTEM" <linux-gpio@vger.kernel.org>,
        "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        kernel-janitors@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] pinctrl: pxa: pxa2xx: Remove 'pxa2xx_pinctrl_exit()'
 which is unused and broken
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On Thu, 4 Jun 2020, Joe Perches wrote:

> On Thu, 2020-06-04 at 15:30 +0300, Dan Carpenter wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 04, 2020 at 01:42:12PM +0200, Julia Lawall wrote:
> > > OK, I recall a discussion with Dan where he suggested that some things
> > > that were not actually bug fixes could also merit a Fixes tag.  But it's
> > > probably better if he weighs in directly.
> >
> > I generally think Fixes should only be used for "real bug" fixes.
> >
> > The one exception is when I'm reviewing a patch that fixes an "unused
> > assignment" static checker warning is that I know which commit
> > introduced the warning.  I don't have strong feelings if it's in the
> > Fixes tag or if it's just mentioned in the commit message.
>
> My view is that changes that silence compiler warnings are
> not fixing bugs and that these changes should generally not
> be backported.
>
> Compiler silencing changes marked as fixes can introduce other
> defects in working code.
>
> Backporting patches to stable trees should be conservatively
> rather than liberally applied.
>
> It seems that the actual backport maintainers disagree though.

But the rule seemed to be "bug fixing patches must contain a Fixes", and
not "backportable patches must contain a Fixes".

Overall, the relationship between backporting and Fixes is not so clear.

Patches that remove something unnecessary might benefit from having a
Fixes, but might not be worth backporting.

julia