Re: [PATCH] Documentation: stable: Add rule on what kind of patches are accepted

[Tudor Ambarus]

On 22.12.2022 15:32, Greg KH wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 22, 2022 at 11:16:58AM +0200, Tudor Ambarus wrote:
> > The list of rules on what kind of patches are accepted, and which ones
> > are not into the “-stable” tree, did not mention anything about new
> > features and let the reader use its own judgement. One may be under the
> > impression that new features are not accepted at all, but that's not true:
> > new features are not accepted unless they fix a reported problem.
> > Update documentation with missing rule.
> >
> > Link: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/fc60e8da-1187-ca2b-1aa8-28e01ea2769a@xxxxxxxxxx/T/#mff820d23793baf637a1b39f5dfbcd9d4d0f0c3a6
> > Signed-off-by: Tudor Ambarus <tudor.ambarus@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > ---
> >   Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst | 1 +
> >   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+)
> >
> > diff --git a/Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst b/Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst
> > index 2fd8aa593a28..266290fab1d9 100644
> > --- a/Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst
> > +++ b/Documentation/process/stable-kernel-rules.rst
> > @@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ Rules on what kind of patches are accepted, and which ones are not, into the
> >      maintainer and include an addendum linking to a bugzilla entry if it
> >      exists and additional information on the user-visible impact.
> >    - New device IDs and quirks are also accepted.
> > + - New features are not accepted unless they fix a reported problem.
>
> No need to call this out, it falls under the "fixes a problem" option,
> right?
>
> The goal is not to iterate every single option here, that would be
> crazy.  Let's keep it short and simple, our biggest problem is that
> people do NOT read this document, not that it does not list these types
> of corner cases.

When I read the document I thought that new features are not accepted
at all, so I took into consideration making a custom fix for stable.
But that would have been worse, as it implied forking the stable and
would have made backporting additional fixes harder. An explicit rule
like this would have saved me few emails changed and few hours spent on
looking for an alternative fix. But maybe others find this a
common sense implied rule and you won't have to be summoned for it
anymore.

> So thanks for the patch, but I will not accept it.

Okay, as you prefer.

Cheers,
ta