vmwgfx GL3 and other -next (4.3) pathches

[Ilia Mirkin]

On Fri, Aug 21, 2015 at 10:39 AM, Emil Velikov <emil.l.velikov at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 21/08/15 13:42, Thomas Hellstrom wrote:
>> I guess there's not much we can do
>> about it at this point? Even if I post the patches now we can't just
>> expect them to be reviewed within a couple of hours...
>>
> Unfortunately it seems like it. Guess I should have checked earlier.

The release process is there to help, not hurt. IMO it is perfectly
acceptable for a driver maintainer to insert random features into
their drivers at random times (subject to the usual release timing
constraints). If you (as the vmwgfx driver maintainer) are comfortable
with dumping the code into the release without the end-user testing
that the -rc's would get (very little for vmwgfx I'd imagine) and
suffering the consequences of a Mesa 11.0.0 release with a broken
vmwgfx (due to some hypothetical error on your end), then it's fine
for you to request a list of patches get cherry-picked (or provide a
branch to be merged in) at the 11th hour.

That said, releases come about every 3 months now, and the expectation
is that new features don't get into the minor point releases. However
I think the pre-major-release time is a bit different than the usual
stable maintenance, even though the actual release process is quite
similar.

Cheers,

  -ilia