Return-path: Received: from charlotte.tuxdriver.com ([70.61.120.58]:53000 "EHLO smtp.tuxdriver.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756576AbZLNOAX (ORCPT ); Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:00:23 -0500 Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:52:30 -0500 From: "John W. Linville" To: Luciano Coelho Cc: "Luis R. Rodriguez" , Kalle Valo , "linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org" , "davem@davemloft.net" Subject: Re: Revised wireless tree management practices Message-ID: <20091214135229.GA18945@tuxdriver.com> References: <87ljhb0x0h.fsf@purkki.valot.fi> <20091210134733.GC11112@tuxdriver.com> <87ein30vt4.fsf@purkki.valot.fi> <43e72e890912100631if1c17b2l597168813db4a19c@mail.gmail.com> <20091210143754.GA2955@tuxdriver.com> <43e72e890912100653p3890705u4f88dd19026a5877@mail.gmail.com> <20091210150318.GB2955@tuxdriver.com> <43e72e890912100814u45a58c47j5dfd66769f8170b@mail.gmail.com> <20091210162517.GD2955@tuxdriver.com> <4B263063.4030000@nokia.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <4B263063.4030000@nokia.com> Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 02:32:35PM +0200, Luciano Coelho wrote: > ext John W. Linville wrote: >> On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 08:14:34AM -0800, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote: >>> On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 7:03 AM, John W. Linville >>> wrote: >> >>>> Yes. If you want me to do git pulls then you need to separate fixes >>>> into a tree based on wireless-2.6. Also, you should be conscientious >>>> about adding "Cc: stable@kernel.org" to commit logs as appropriate. >>>> The whole point of the pulls is to keep me from having to touch >>>> the patches. >>> OK last question, is if we do take up the pull request method for >>> ath9k at Atheros we still have people sending patches from the >>> community so who would pick those up. Is it easier for you if we do so >>> and then get them to you through our pull request? How about the >>> stable fixes? Reason I ask if you pick some of these up it just means >>> we need to rebase and I do prefer to keep a clean tree myself as well, >>> although not required at all. >> >> In the generic case, the driver/subsystem maintainer and I should >> negotiate that in advance -- either way might be acceptable and either >> way might call for special cases for individual patches. >> >> So, feel free to propose how you would like to do it for ath9k in >> another thread or a private email. But in general I would think that >> letting "outsider" (for lack of a better term) patches flow through >> a driver/subsystem maintainer tree would be acceptable. After all, >> that implies a higher level of domain-specific review. > > This is cool! I might consider sending pull-reqs for the wl1271 driver as > well, so I don't send these patchbombs every now and then. ;) The > advantage of this is that we can have a review round before the patches > actually go in. So we as the driver/subsystem maintainers can decide > when the patches are ready to go to wireless-next-2.6. > > Now it's my turn to ask a question... What happens in the case when there > is an API change, say, in mac80211 that requires changes in a few > different drivers? Those changes are usually done in a single patch that > changes both the API and the affected drivers in one go. In this case we > will end up having to rebase our own trees. > > How is this done in higher levels, for instance when something that > changed in the net subsystem requires changes in the wireless > "sub-subsystem"? Well, git is really good at merges. So in general things will "just work". In cases where you _need_ a patch that has been merged in my tree you can just pull from me (possibly resolving merge conflicts) and then continue from there. But in many/most cases you can just not worry about those things and I'll reserve conflicts in my tree instead. Note that the above is true for driver-specific changes as well. So for example if I were to merge a fix for iwlwifi, the iwlwifi tree could either simply ignore the fix in their tree or pull from me to get the fix before applying any following patches. I would ask that before pulling from me you make sure that I have pulled your latest round of preceding changes. That way when you pull from me it is a "fast forward" for your tree, and your pull requests to me do not include many/any "pull from wireless-2.6" merge entries. John -- John W. Linville Someday the world will need a hero, and you linville@tuxdriver.com might be all we have. Be ready.