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Message-ID: <d8403c45-3561-4759-f6c2-d18afa5e323a@leemhuis.info>
Date:   Wed, 12 Jul 2023 19:02:34 +0200
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To:     Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc:     stable@vger.kernel.org, linux-doc@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Sasha Levin <sashal@kernel.org>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
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 <2023071002-phrasing-tranquil-49d6@gregkh>
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 <2023071221-blade-reactive-0707@gregkh>
From:   Thorsten Leemhuis <linux@leemhuis.info>
Subject: Re: [RFC PATCH v1 0/3] docs: stable-kernel-rules: add delayed
 backporting option and a few tweaks
In-Reply-To: <2023071221-blade-reactive-0707@gregkh>
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On 12.07.23 17:16, Greg KH wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 11:30:30AM +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
>> While working on the latter I noticed one more thing:
>>
>> ```
>>     .. warning::
>>        The -stable-rc tree is a snapshot in time of the stable-queue
>> tree and
>>        will change frequently, hence will be rebased often. It should
>> only be
>>        used for testing purposes (e.g. to be consumed by CI systems).
>> ```
> [...]
>> I'll thus likely
>> change the text to something like this,
>> unless I'm missing something or someone has a better idea:
>> ```
>>   .. warning::
>>      The branches in the -stable-rc tree are rebased each time a new -rc
>>      is released, as they are created by taking the latest release and
>>      applying the patches from the stable-queue on top.
> 
> Yes, that is true, but they are also rebased sometimes in intermediate
> places, before a -rc is released, just to give CI systems a chance to
> test easier.
> 
> These are ONLY for CI systems to use, nothing else should be touching
> them.  So I think the current text is correct, what am I missing?

That I misunderstood things and forgot about the "rebased sometimes in
intermediate places" aspect I once knew about. Sorry. I'll leave the
text as it is then.

Nevertheless makes me wonder: is that strategy wise in times when some
ordinary users and some distributions are building kernels straight from
git repos instead of tarballs? I'm one of those, as I distribute
stable-rc packages for Fedora here:
https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/groups/g/kernel-vanilla/coprs/

And the "rebased sometimes in intermediate places" aspect complicated
things for me (my scripts handle that and apparently I forgot about that
since I wrote them; uhhps :-/ ).

But whatever, not that important, feel free to ignore this remark. And I
can see why you are doing it the way you do, too.

Thx for you helpful feedback!

Ciao, Thorsten