From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (smtp1.linux-foundation.org [172.17.192.35]) by mail.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 99C1D266 for ; Wed, 2 May 2018 20:41:58 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-vk0-f53.google.com (mail-vk0-f53.google.com [209.85.213.53]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 07038681 for ; Wed, 2 May 2018 20:41:57 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-vk0-f53.google.com with SMTP id i190-v6so9889845vkd.13 for ; Wed, 02 May 2018 13:41:57 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: geert.uytterhoeven@gmail.com In-Reply-To: <20180502195138.GC18390@sasha-vm> References: <20180501163818.GD1468@sasha-vm> <20180502195138.GC18390@sasha-vm> From: Geert Uytterhoeven Date: Wed, 2 May 2018 22:41:56 +0200 Message-ID: To: Sasha Levin Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Cc: Greg KH , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" , "w@1wt.eu" , "ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org" Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] bug-introducing patches List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Hi Sasha, On Wed, May 2, 2018 at 9:51 PM, Sasha Levin wrote: > On Wed, May 02, 2018 at 05:32:37PM +0200, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote: >>On Tue, May 1, 2018 at 6:38 PM, Sasha Levin >> wrote: >>> Working on AUTOSEL, it became even more obvious to me how difficult it is for a >>> patch to get a proper review. Maintainers found it difficult to keep up with >>> the upstream work for their subsystem, and reviewing additional -stable patches >>> put even more load on them which some suggested would be more than what they >>> can handle. >> >>Thanks for your work! >> >>> - For some reason, the odds of a -rc commit to be targetted for -stable is >>> over 20%, while for merge window commits it's about 3%. I can't quite >>> explain why that happens, but this would suggest that -rc commits end up >>> hurting -stable pretty badly. >> >>Aren't more -rc commits targeted for -stable because they are bugfixes? >>Ideally, new features are supposed to be merged during the merge window, >>while -rc commits fix bugs. > > new features can only be merged during a merge window, bug fixes can > be merged at any point. I wrote "ideally". There's a big difference between theory and practice... >>So they can be categorized like: >> 1. Plain -rc commits, > > What's this exactly? -rc commits are only supposed to fix bugs. ... hence not all of them are fixes. Sometimes fast-tracking a new feature or API reduces dependencies for the next merge window. This is just one example of IMHO valid non-bugfix -rc commits. Between v4.17-rc1 and v4.17-rc3, there are 660 non-merge commits, of which - 245 carry a Fixes tag, - 196 carry a CC stable, - 395 contain the string "fix". (non-mutually exclusive) That leaves us with 200 commits not falling in the bugfix category. >> 2. -rc commits fixing a bug: >> a. in the same release cycle, >> b. in a previous release. >> >>2a assumes the bug was backported to -stable, too, doesn't it? > > Bug fixes for features introduced in that release cycle won't be > backported to stable. They do, if the original commit was introduced during the same cycle and backported to stable. >>Do you have statistics for which categories are most buggy? > > I haven't broken it down to subsystems for a few reasons: I didn't mean break down by subsystem, but by category from the list above (1, 2a, 2b). Gr{oetje,eeting}s, Geert -- Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds