Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 12 Nov 2021 12:16:53 -0500 | From | Sasha Levin <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH v3 1/3] MAINTAINERS: Update maintainers for paravirt ops and VMware hypervisor interface |
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On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 11:40:02AM -0800, Srivatsa S. Bhat wrote: >On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 07:45:02PM +0100, Greg KH wrote: >> On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 07:39:16AM -0800, Srivatsa S. Bhat wrote: >> > On Thu, Nov 11, 2021 at 07:50:39AM +0100, Greg KH wrote: >> > > On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 12:08:16PM -0800, Srivatsa S. Bhat wrote: >> > > > From: Srivatsa S. Bhat (VMware) <srivatsa@csail.mit.edu> >> > > > >> > > > Deep has decided to transfer maintainership of the VMware hypervisor >> > > > interface to Srivatsa, and the joint-maintainership of paravirt ops in >> > > > the Linux kernel to Srivatsa and Alexey. Update the MAINTAINERS file >> > > > to reflect this change. >> > > > >> > > > Signed-off-by: Srivatsa S. Bhat (VMware) <srivatsa@csail.mit.edu> >> > > > Acked-by: Alexey Makhalov <amakhalov@vmware.com> >> > > > Acked-by: Deep Shah <sdeep@vmware.com> >> > > > Acked-by: Juergen Gross <jgross@suse.com> >> > > > Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org >> > > >> > > Why are MAINTAINERS updates needed for stable? That's not normal :( >> > >> > So that people posting bug-fixes / backports to these subsystems for >> > older kernels (stable and LTS releases) will CC the new subsystem >> > maintainers. >> >> That's not how stable releases work at all. >> >> > That's why I added CC stable tag only to the first two >> > patches which add/replace maintainers and not the third patch which is >> > just a cleanup. >> >> Patches for stable kernels need to go into Linus's tree first, and if >> you have the MAINTAINERS file updated properly there, then you will be >> properly cc:ed. We do not look at the MAINTAINERS file for the older >> kernel when sending patches out, it's totally ignored as that was the >> snapshot at a point in time, which is usually no longer the true state. >> > >Sure, but that's the case for patches that get mainlined (and >subsequently backported to -stable) /after/ this update to the >MAINTAINERS file gets merged into mainline. > >When adding the CC stable tag, the case I was trying to address was >for patches that are already in mainline but weren't CC'ed to stable, >and at some later point, somebody decides to backport them to older >stable kernels. In that case, there is a chance that the contributor >might run ./get_maintainer.pl against the stable tree (as that's the >tree they are backporting the upstream commit against) and end up not >CC'ing the new maintainers. So, I thought it would be good to keep the >maintainer info updated in the older stable kernels too.
If you look at cases like these, I can see an argument around bringing it back to -stable. However, changes in the upstream MAINTAINERS file aren't limited to just change in maintainers.
How would we handle addition of maintainers of a new code upstream? Or removal of maintainers due to code deletion? Or code movement upstream that isn't reflected in the stable tree (think a driver graduating from staging).
It becomes a mess quite quickly and the easiest solution here is to just use upstream's MAINTAINERS file.
Maybe we should just remove MAINTAINERS from stable trees to make it obvious.
-- Thanks, Sasha
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