[dpdk-dev] RFC: DPDK Long Term Support

[Yuanhan Liu]

On Mon, Jun 06, 2016 at 03:31:09PM +0200, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> 2016-06-06 19:49, Yuanhan Liu:
> > On Fri, Jun 03, 2016 at 06:05:15PM +0200, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> > > 2016-06-03 15:07, Mcnamara, John:
> > > > Developers submitting fixes to the mainline should also CC the maintainer so
> > > > that they can evaluate the patch. A <stable at dpdk.org> email address could be
> > > > provided for this so that it can be included as a CC in the commit messages
> > > > and documented in the Code Contribution Guidelines.
> > > 
> > > Why?
> > > We must avoid putting too much restrictions on the contributors.
> > 
> > This is actually requested by me, in a behaviour similar to Linux
> > kernel community takes. Here is the thing, the developer normally
> > knows better than a generic maintainer (assume it's me) that a patch
> > applies to stable branch or not. This is especially true for DPDK,
> > since we ask the developer to note down the bug commit by adding a
> > fix line.
> > 
> > It wouldn't be a burden for an active contributor, as CCing to related
> > people (including right mailing list) is a good habit they already
> > have.  For some one-time contributors, it's okay that they don't know
> > and follow it.
> > 
> > In such case, I guess we need the help from the related subsystem
> > maintainer: if it's a good bug fix that applies to stable branch,
> > and the contributor forgot to make a explicit cc to stable mailing
> > list, the subsystem maintainer should forward or ask him to forward
> > to stable mailing list.
> > 
> > The reason I'm asking is that as a generic maintainer, there is
> > simply no such energy to keep an eye on all patches: you have to
> > be aware of that we have thoughts of email per month from dpdk dev
> > mailing list: the number of last month is 1808.
> > 
> > Doing so would allow one person maintain several stable tree
> > be possible.
> > 
> > For more info, you could check linux/Documentation/stable_kernel_rules.txt.
> 
> Makes sense to CC stable at dpdk.org list (must be created).
> 
> Why put a CC tag in the commit? For automatic processing?
> Maybe it is too early to run before walking ;)

It's a tip/trick used a lot in kernel community. Assume you have made
a patchset, that just one of them fixes a bug that you hope this patch
could also be cc'ed to the original author that introduces the bug.
You could achieve that by adding him to the cc list from cli. However,
in such way, all patches are cc'ed to him. The alternative is to add
a line "Cc: some.one <some at one.com>" in the commit log so that he will
get that patch only.

If you look at a small micro optimization patchset I sent out last
month [0], you will find that I used this trick for the 1st patch,
as it touches the core part of virtio-net vring operation, that I
hope I can get some comments from the virtio guru/maintainer, Michael.
Therefore, he is cc'ed. However, for the 2 other patches in the same
set, it's basically DPDK vhost-user stuff, so that I didn't cc him
to not bother him.

This rule, of course, also applies to the stable branch (for bug
fixing patches in a set). It doesn't matter which way you take if
it's just a patch set of one bug fixing patch though.

[0]: http://dpdk.org/ml/archives/dev/2016-May/038246.html

	--yliu