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Date:   Tue, 16 Aug 2022 12:16:36 -0400
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Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] x86: make pat and mtrr independent from each other
To:     Thorsten Leemhuis <regressions@leemhuis.info>
Cc:     jbeulich@suse.com, Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>, Borislav Petkov <bp@alien8.de>,
        Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>,
        "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>,
        "Rafael J. Wysocki" <rafael@kernel.org>,
        Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz>, Andy Lutomirski <luto@kernel.org>,
        Peter Zijlstra <peterz@infradead.org>,
        Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@oracle.com>,
        regressions@lists.linux.dev, xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org,
        x86@kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-pm@vger.kernel.org, Juergen Gross <jgross@suse.com>
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From:   Chuck Zmudzinski <brchuckz@netscape.net>
In-Reply-To: <6b40ecc3-a2d3-3efd-4a19-2faf737f098b@leemhuis.info>
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On 8/16/2022 10:41 AM, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> On 15.08.22 20:17, Chuck Zmudzinski wrote:
> > On 8/15/2022 2:00 PM, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> >
> >> And FWIW: I've seen indicators that a solution to resolve this is
> >> hopefully pretty close now.
> > 
> > That's good to know. But I must ask, can you provide a link to a public
> > discussion that indicates a fix is close?
>
> I just searched for the commit id of the culprit yesterday like this:
> https://lore.kernel.org/all/?q=bdd8b6c982*
>
> Which brought me to this message, which looks like Boris applied a
> slightly(?) modified version of Jan's patch to a branch that afaik is
> regularly pushed to Linus:
> https://lore.kernel.org/all/166055884287.401.612271624942869534.tip-bot2@tip-bot2/
>
> So unless problems show up in linux-next I expect this will land in
> master soon (and a bit later be backported to stable due to the CC
> stable tag).

OK, that's exactly the kind of thing I am looking for. It would be
nice if regzbot could have found that patch in that tree and
display it in the web interface as a notable patch. Currently,
regzbot is only linking to a dead patch that does not even fix
the regression as a notable patch associated with this regression.

If regzbot is not yet smart enough to find it, could you take the
time to manually intervene with a regzbot command so that
patch is displayed as a notable patch for this regression?

>
> > Or do you know a fix is close
> > because of private discussions? That distinction is important to me
> > because open source software is much less useful to me if the solutions
> > to problems are not discussed openly (except, of course, for solutions
> > to security vulnerabilities that are not yet public).
>
> You IMHO are expecting a bit too much here IMHO. Solutions to problems
> in open source software get discussed on various, sometimes private
> channels all the time. Just take conferences for example, where people
> discuss them during talks, meetings, or in one-to-ones over coffee;
> sometimes they are the only way to solve complex problems. But as you
> can see from above link it's not like anybody is trying to sneak things
> into the kernel.
>
> Ciao, Thorsten

Well, as a user of Linux, I would like to see more of those discussions in
the open, especially if they relate directly to a fix of a regression tracked
by regzbot. it would be helpful for me to decide questions such as, does
it make sense for me to keep using the foo project to provide a feature,
or should I switch to project baz that provides the same feature?

In any case, watching what Linus actually chooses to commit into
mainline gives me a pretty good clue about such questions.

Best regards,

Chuck