[RFC 3/4] Documentation: Add cutoff periods for patch acceptance

[Kevin Cernekee]

This has been a recurring source of confusion for the new submitters who
I've helped; let's see if adding a small illustration improves the
situation.

Signed-off-by: Kevin Cernekee <cernekee@xxxxxxxxx>
---
 Documentation/development-process/5.Posting | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/development-process/5.Posting b/Documentation/development-process/5.Posting
index 14f8b01..50cf4dc 100644
--- a/Documentation/development-process/5.Posting
+++ b/Documentation/development-process/5.Posting
@@ -35,6 +35,22 @@ merge window has closed.  You can visit https://www.kernel.org/ to check
 the merge window status; it is closed if the "mainline:" entry shows a
 version number containing "-rc", and open if a non-rc version number appears.
 
+In many cases, feature additions received and accepted somewhere in the range
+of [N-rc1, N-rc5) will be merged into the -next tree targeting the (N+1) Linux
+release.  For example:
+
+  kernel.org "mainline:"  |  Patch may appear
+  field when posted       |  in released kernel
+  ------------------------+--------------------------------
+  3.18-rc[1-4]            |  3.19
+  3.18-rc[5-9]            |  3.20
+  3.18                    |  Merge window open - don't post
+  3.19-rc[1-4]            |  3.20
+  3.19-rc[5-9]            |  3.21
+  3.19                    |  Merge window open - don't post
+
+Bug fixes can typically be accepted at any time.
+
 
 5.2: BEFORE CREATING PATCHES
 
-- 
2.1.1

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