Re: [PATCH] Revert "Enable '-Werror' by default for all kernel builds"

[Greg Kroah-Hartman]

On Mon, Sep 13, 2021 at 11:32:56AM +0200, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > >>  config WERROR
> > >>         bool "Compile the kernel with warnings as errors"
> > >>-       default y
> > >>+       default COMPILE_TEST
> > >
> > >That seems reasonable. It very much is about build-testing.
> > 
> > That and 2 more things IMO:
> > 
> > a. having developers be responsible for build warnings, not just
> >    build errors
> > 
> > b. having maintainers merge them more like they are build errors
> >    and not just some warnings that can be overlooked.
> > 
> > I don't see enough of a. or b.  :(
> 
> Do we really want developers treat warnings as errors? When the code
> is okay but some random version of gcc dislikes it...
> 
> Plus, there's question of stable. We already get ton of churn there
> ("this fixes random warning"). WERROR will only encourage that...

I will not be backporting this patch to older stable kernels, but I
_want_ to see stable builds build with no warnings.  When we add
warnings, they are almost always things we need to fix up properly.

Over time, I have worked to reduce the number of build warnings in older
stable kernels.  For newer versions of gcc, sometimes that is
impossible, but we are close...

thanks,

greg k-h