Re: [Ksummit-2013-discuss] When to push bug fixes to mainline

[David Lang]

On Tue, 16 Jul 2013, Takashi Iwai wrote:

> At Tue, 16 Jul 2013 00:19:16 -0700 (PDT),
> David Lang wrote:
> > On Fri, 12 Jul 2013, Willy Tarreau wrote:
> >
> > > And maybe in the end, having 1/10 patch cause a regression is not *that*
> > > dramatic, and probably less than not fixing the 9 other bugs. In one case
> > > we rely on -stable to merge the 10 fixes, and on the other case we'd rely
> > > on -stable to just revert one of them.
> >
> > Apologies for the late post, I'm catching up on things, but this jumped out at
> > me.
> >
> > We went through a LOT of pain several years ago when people got into the mindset
> > that a patch was acceptable if it fixed more people than it broke. eliminating
> > that mindset did wonders for kernel stability.
> >
> > Regressions are a lot more of a negative than bugfixes are a positive, a 10:1
> > ratio of fixes to regressions is _not_ good enough.
>
> IMO, one of the reasons is the nature of stable-release: the stable
> tree is released soon after reviews of patches, so no actual
> regression tests can be done before the release.
>
> For finding a regression, patch reviews won't be enough; all patches
> have been already reviewed, thus essentially they must be all
> positive/good fixes.  And the compile is OK.  So what's the problem?
>
> Maybe some QA period before the release might help, but who would
> care?  (Especially under the situation where everybody has own x.y
> stable tree?)

I am not saying that no regressions will happen (for exactly the reasons that 
you are giving).

what I am complaining about is the attitude that a few regressions are Ok, as 
long as there are more fixes than there are regressions.

David Lang
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/