Helping with backports: linux-next, linux, linux-stable - a few enhancements

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

Greg, Stephen, Konstantin,

so for the Linux backports project [0] we rely on a few git trees:

  * linux-next.git
  * linux-stable.git
  * linux.git

The linux.git tree is required for RC releases. The linux-stable.git
tree for extraversion stable releases, and the linux-next.git tree for
daily snapshots. There is a trick for stable releases whereby we
accelerate the integration of pending-stable patches by cherry picking
them out of linux-next.git if the commit log entry has the
'stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx' on the commit log, and if the stable patch
does not apply we require the developers to provide a backport
compatible port. This trick works swell on linux-next.git for RC
release given that we can query for rc releases there as linux-next
carries them but linux-next.git does not carry extra version tags.
Additionally the requirement of linux.git is only there given that at
times there are delays between which linux-stable.git will not have an
RC release on it. I have a way to address all these issues, namely to
add linux.git as a remote for my local linux-stable tree, and also by
adding linux-stable as a local remote for my linux-next tree. Now, I
document how I resolve this for backport package consumers / builders
but it occurs to me perhaps we can simplify this if we had:

  * linux-next - pulling in linux-stable packs / tags
  * a new linux-releases.git - which has both linux.git and
linux-stable pulled together through a cronjob

Would this be reasonable to accommodate to help ease of use or shall
we just live with folks having to do the remote / local remote hacks?

[0] https://backports.wiki.kernel.org/

  LUis
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