[Mesa-dev] [RFC] Mesa 9.2 and release process changes

[Marek Olšák]

On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 1:38 AM, Ian Romanick <idr at freedesktop.org> wrote:
> On 07/08/2013 03:12 PM, Marek Olšák wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 2, 2013 at 10:02 PM, Ian Romanick <idr at freedesktop.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> 3. I'd like to make some adjustments to our process for picking patches
>>> back
>>> to the stable branch.  The current process is okay, but it has some
>>> kinks.
>>> The two big (related) problems are people either under-mark things for
>>> the
>>> stable branch or over-mark.  We also have the problem that things are
>>> occasionally marked for stable that, in the end, shouldn't go to stable.
>>>
>>> Instead of the current system, I'd like to propose creating a mesa-stable
>>> mailing list where candidate patches will be sent.  The release manage
>>> will
>>> then have the responsibility to apply patches to the branch.  This gives
>>> opportunity for subsystem maintainers to ACK or NAK patches before they
>>> land.  It also gives the opportunity to use a build bot to pre-verify
>>> that
>>> no patch ever breaks the build on the stable branch.
>>>
>>> Anyone can nominate a patch for stable by sending it to the list.  This
>>> provides a means for solving the under-mark problem.  It may mean that
>>> developers have to do more work (e.g., waiting awhile after a patch lands
>>> on
>>> master to send it to the stable list), so we may need to come up with
>>> some
>>> means to mitigate that.
>>>
>>> As part of this, we need to clearly document the criteria for inclusion
>>> in
>>> the stable branch.  We have some vague criteria now, but we should
>>> formalize
>>> and agree on the list.
>>
>>
>> I don't like the idea that *we* have to send patches to the stable
>> mailing list. The marking of candidates for stable has pretty much
>> been the same as in the Linux kernel and worked pretty well. From
>> kernel/Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt:
>
>
> Yeah, I wasn't terribly in love with that part either.  Having to remember
> to send a patch out again seemed prone to loss.
>
>
>> "To have the patch automatically included in the stable tree, add the tag
>>    Cc: stable at vger.kernel.org
>> in the sign-off area. Once the patch is merged it will be applied to
>> the stable tree without anything else needing to be done by the author
>> or subsystem maintainer."
>>
>> The major difference between the current Mesa and kernel approaches
>> seems to be that there is a -stable maintainer for kernel who decides
>> which candidates go in and which don't. I think we need such a strict
>> maintainer for our stable branches, but I don't think we need anything
>> else.
>
>
> Carl has agreed to be the maintainer at least for the time being. Having a
> separate list would make it easier for him to sort candidate patches from
> non-candidate patches because would keep marked-at-commit patches and
> marked-after-commit patches in one places.
>
> Could we just change our "Mark the patch with 'NOTE: ...'" policy with "To
> have the patch automatically included in the stable tree, add the tag
>     Cc: mesa-stable at lists.freedesktop.org
>
> in the sign-off area..." ?

Yes. This sounds very good to me.

Marek