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smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b=KZx1K93y; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=kernel.org header.i=@kernel.org header.b="KZx1K93y" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id E7940C4CEF0; Thu, 11 Sep 2025 11:04:21 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1757588662; bh=Qw4QLPdU92Hrbw6z/74IGjNCY8DDirzghXEP0QUnW8w=; h=Date:From:Subject:To:From; b=KZx1K93yzyhCoDhVEd5MIVJLj4MSmq5weK0iB5v3P9D/aU0NAdWRxD2Uc5Wwpsid2 r89FhYZ95boicLjjz0qcXCcZIyo61iRq4yYYaejyerGE3Bq6bOTKoI+Bp0+Jcvc/ne 5lYd5XZ+pG3jBt2pjWaopVtQ9/zlWCezMVojE7MkTSvoJM0CwBeI70F282kCKeTJ/l YG5mWv3TU1q2s74xKyuk0YWGRcCQ1kvh6jmbfNpGuXiePOYoMVZUj5sHo+KDCttNEp +WRI0gbrnCdjArUs67y7ECkSQQg6w0DiZFvF0q4IJnU/WqiikqD4yoJxCT+YQkFJWM uqcbg4eHuTDJg== Message-ID: <299e6601-a83e-4e5d-9dd9-12ae796cd913@kernel.org> Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2025 13:04:19 +0200 Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: ksummit@lists.linux.dev List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird From: Krzysztof Kozlowski Content-Language: en-US Subject: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Hidden commits from next (aka why maintainers hoard them in backpack) Autocrypt: addr=krzk@kernel.org; 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charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi, I have noticed at least a few cases where sub-maintainers collect patches, but their trees are not included linux-next. Or their patches are not fed to linux-next. I don’t see a good reason to keep valid, proper patches - collected by trusted sub-maintainers and intended for upstream submission - out of linux-next. If a sub-maintainer is trusted in collecting patches and sending them to the upstream maintainer, these commits should be visible in the linux-next. I have occasionally asked sub-maintainers to add their trees to the linux-next, and sometimes this worked. In other cases it could not work for various reasons, e.g. workflow of the upstream maintainer or reluctance to share commits early. These reasons are what I would like to discuss and, hopefully, improve. Why is that a problem? ====================== Patch was reviewed on the list day X and applied by the sub-maintainer. Then for two, three or four weeks, this patch is not being in the linux-next means: 1. Limited or no build bot coverage. 2. No actual integration testing, even if it is just spotting early merge conflicts. 3. No wide community testing. 4. Contributors cannot base their patchsets on linux-next for convenience, but need to find each sub-maintainer tree and pull it. For few cases (see further) these sub-maintainer trees are not documented in MAINTAINERS, so it is impossible for contributor to rebase on current maintainer's tree! Identifying the patches ======================= There are two cases here for patches committed by sub-maintainers, but never fed to next: 1. The upstream maintainer took them via pull request. 2. The upstream maintainer rebased everything - changing commit date (to add their own Signed-off-by? otherwise why would you rebase a pull request from someone you trust?). Short stats for case (1) - no rebasing ====================================== I collected commits present in today's linux-next, but not present in ~two weeks ago. These are the commits which appeared for broad testing in the last two weeks. Then I dropped from above set all commits with commit date newer than the next two weeks ago. This gives us set of commits: 1. Which were committed some time ago, like a month ago, 2. But they appeared in the linux-next only recently or were rebased. 3. Then a manual look by subject (not automated yet) to be sure commit was not rebased. Where were these commits? Why maintainers hoard them instead of releasing to linux-next? Currently that is around: git rev-list --before=2025-08-27 next-20250911 ^next-20250829 | wc -l 133 `git show --no-patch --format=fuller` on above list And here is the example output of such commits still not in the next-20250829: Author: John Harrison AuthorDate: Fri Jun 13 20:02:22 2025 -0700 Commit: Daniele Ceraolo Spurio CommitDate: Thu Jul 3 14:05:10 2025 -0700 Author: Arnd Bergmann AuthorDate: Thu Aug 7 09:21:28 2025 +0200 Commit: Oliver Upton CommitDate: Fri Aug 8 01:28:57 2025 -0700 commit 0c6b24d70da21201ed009a2aca740d2dfddc7ab5 Author: Jason-JH Lin AuthorDate: Mon Jul 28 10:48:50 2025 +0800 Commit: Chun-Kuang Hu CommitDate: Wed Aug 13 23:50:06 2025 +0000 Short stats for case (2) - rebasing =================================== I don’t have statistics for these cases, because sub-maintainers’ trees are not in linux-next, and the upstream maintainer changes the commit date during rebasing. But such cases do exist (I dug them out, even though maintainer trees are not listed in MAINTAINERS file but pull requests are on the lists): Author: Laurent Pinchart AuthorDate: Thu Aug 8 22:41:02 2024 +0200 Commit: Laurent Pinchart CommitDate: Wed Aug 14 16:42:57 2024 +0300 Above commit is not in linux-next still, even though it was committed month ago. Just a friendly note, Laurent, I appreciate your work and I do not want to point that you committed it incorrectly. In the contrary - your commit is right, but your upstream maintainer stops you from including this in linux-next. My aim here is only to discuss and improve the process. Terminology =========== 1. Sub-maintainer: A person who collects (applies) patches and sends them via pull request to the upstream maintainer. 2. Upstream maintainer: A person who collects patches from contributors and pull requests from sub-maintainers, and then sends everything to Linus (or another upstream maintainer). Best regards, Krzysztof