From: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
To: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Cc: James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com>,
ksummit@lists.linux.dev
Subject: Re: [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Rethinking the acceptance policy for "trivial" patches
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2021 12:26:03 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <202104211223.DEB3B1FFF@keescook> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20210421152209.68075314@gandalf.local.home>
On Wed, Apr 21, 2021 at 03:22:09PM -0400, Steven Rostedt wrote:
> On Wed, 21 Apr 2021 11:35:36 -0700
> James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com> wrote:
>
> > I've long been on record as not really being a fan of trivial patches
> > because they can cause merge issues with current patches and introduce
> > bugs, particularly in older drivers, that don't get detected for a long
> > while. However, the recent events with the University of Minnesota:
> >
> > https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210421130105.1226686-1-gregkh@linuxfoundation.org/
> >
> > Have elevated the risk factor around trivial patches claiming to fix
> > bugs to the point where it looks like there's no such thing as a truly
> > trivial patch and they all need reviewing.
> >
> > Our policy in SCSI for a long time has been no trivial patches accepted
> > to maintained drivers, and I think that would be a good start if
> > adopted kernel wide, but I think the next policy should be no trivial
> > bug fix without a pointer to the actual bug report or report from a
> > trusted static checker. This would likely mean we have to create a
> > list of trusted static checkers ... obviously 0day and coverity but
> > what else?
>
> I take a lot of trivial fixes. I found two that I accepted that were from
> umn.edu, and both of them (after a second review) were legitimate fixes.
> One was in Greg's revert patch series, which I asked him to not revert, and
> the other was me looking at all patches I've received with a Cc to umn.edu
> emails, and was from a gmail account (which I'm assuming was someone that
> was part of this group).
>
> I have no problem with taking a trivial patch if they are really fixing a
> bug. I think what needs to be done here is look at the patches that got in
> that were buggy, and see why they got in.
>
> Perhaps the answer is to scrutinize trivial patches more. To me, the only
> "trivial" patch is a comment fix, or update to documentation. And even
> then, I spend time reviewing it.
>
> If you don't have time to review a patch, then by all means, don't accept
> it. Perhaps the answer is simply have a higher bar on what you do accept.
Agreed. I and many other folks do trivial patching all over the kernel
(though, yes, we're usually much better at describing tools, methods,
reachability, and impact), but I don't want us to swing too far in the
other direction and allow the UMN situation to have a chilling effect on
legitimate (even if "trivial") improvements.
--
Kees Cook
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2021-04-21 19:26 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 153+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2021-04-21 18:35 [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Rethinking the acceptance policy for "trivial" patches James Bottomley
2021-04-21 18:46 ` Christian Borntraeger
2021-04-21 18:51 ` Alexey Dobriyan
2021-04-21 18:53 ` Christian Borntraeger
2021-04-21 19:06 ` Al Viro
2021-04-21 19:14 ` James Bottomley
2021-04-21 19:22 ` Steven Rostedt
2021-04-21 19:26 ` Kees Cook [this message]
2021-04-21 19:32 ` Roland Dreier
2021-04-21 19:55 ` Julia Lawall
2021-04-21 20:28 ` Stephen Hemminger
2021-04-21 20:37 ` Julia Lawall
2021-04-21 20:45 ` Steven Rostedt
2021-04-21 20:50 ` Julia Lawall
2021-04-21 21:03 ` Jiri Kosina
2021-04-21 21:37 ` James Morris
2021-04-22 7:34 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2021-04-22 7:51 ` Mike Rapoport
2021-04-22 8:45 ` Christian Brauner
2021-04-22 15:27 ` Steven Rostedt
2021-04-22 9:39 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-22 9:55 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-22 12:01 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 12:26 ` Mark Brown
2021-04-22 12:35 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 12:52 ` Hans Verkuil
2021-04-22 13:33 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-22 13:42 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 12:18 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 15:38 ` Shuah Khan
2021-04-23 9:06 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-23 17:17 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-23 22:41 ` Shuah Khan
2021-04-22 5:59 ` Christoph Hellwig
2021-04-22 6:28 ` Tomasz Figa
2021-04-22 7:05 ` Al Viro
2021-04-22 7:46 ` Al Viro
2021-04-22 7:06 ` H. Peter Anvin
2021-04-22 7:05 ` Jiri Kosina
2021-04-22 16:05 ` Roland Dreier
2021-04-22 16:24 ` Krzysztof Kozlowski
2021-04-22 18:03 ` Al Viro
2021-04-22 22:35 ` Thomas Gleixner
2021-04-22 22:53 ` Laurent Pinchart
2021-07-20 16:26 ` Kernel sustainability (was Re: [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Rethinking the acceptance policy for "trivial" patches) Daniel Vetter
2021-04-21 19:30 ` [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Rethinking the acceptance policy for "trivial" patches Jiri Kosina
2021-04-21 20:28 ` Jiri Kosina
2021-04-21 22:18 ` Shuah Khan
2021-04-21 23:17 ` Guenter Roeck
2021-04-21 23:21 ` Shuah Khan
2021-04-21 19:47 ` Dan Carpenter
2021-04-22 9:34 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-22 9:59 ` Johannes Berg
2021-04-22 10:52 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-22 12:16 ` Mike Rapoport
2021-04-22 13:41 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-22 20:15 ` Alexandre Belloni
2021-04-23 0:09 ` Randy Dunlap
2021-04-21 19:49 ` Alexandre Belloni
2021-04-22 2:05 ` Martin K. Petersen
2021-04-22 3:04 ` Joe Perches
2021-04-22 10:13 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-22 12:07 ` Mark Brown
2021-04-22 16:42 ` Bart Van Assche
2021-04-22 17:58 ` Jiri Kosina
2021-04-22 4:21 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 4:56 ` Al Viro
2021-04-22 5:52 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 6:05 ` Christoph Hellwig
2021-04-22 6:03 ` Christoph Hellwig
2021-04-22 6:18 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 9:20 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-22 11:34 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 13:22 ` Mark Brown
2021-04-22 13:47 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 13:51 ` Mark Brown
2021-04-22 14:12 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-22 14:51 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 13:29 ` Steven Rostedt
2021-04-22 13:58 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 14:20 ` Rob Herring
2021-04-23 6:04 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-23 6:46 ` Joe Perches
2021-04-23 7:13 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-23 7:20 ` [PATCH RFC] scripts: add a script for sending patches Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-23 14:52 ` Better tools for sending patches (was: Re: [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Rethinking the acceptance policy for "trivial" patches) Doug Anderson
2021-04-23 16:03 ` Mark Brown
2021-04-23 17:12 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-26 23:50 ` Simon Glass
2021-04-22 12:53 ` [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Rethinking the acceptance policy for "trivial" patches Konstantin Ryabitsev
2021-04-22 13:08 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 13:27 ` Konstantin Ryabitsev
2021-04-22 13:41 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 16:28 ` Serge E. Hallyn
2021-04-22 17:56 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 18:05 ` backfilling threads with b4 (was: Re: [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Rethinking the acceptance policy for "trivial" patches) Konstantin Ryabitsev
2021-04-23 7:19 ` [MAINTAINER SUMMIT] Rethinking the acceptance policy for "trivial" patches Greg KH
2021-04-23 7:31 ` Christian Brauner
2021-04-23 18:50 ` Konstantin Ryabitsev
2021-04-22 12:40 ` Mark Brown
2021-04-22 12:54 ` Mike Rapoport
2021-04-22 13:23 ` Mark Brown
2021-04-22 15:19 ` Steven Rostedt
2021-04-22 21:19 ` Thomas Gleixner
2021-04-22 21:36 ` Steven Rostedt
2021-04-22 22:39 ` Thomas Gleixner
2021-04-23 0:26 ` Joe Perches
2021-04-23 6:15 ` Greg KH
2021-04-23 6:50 ` Dan Williams
2021-04-23 7:13 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2021-04-23 14:41 ` Shuah Khan
2021-04-23 9:12 ` Michal Hocko
2021-04-22 14:51 ` Laurent Pinchart
2021-04-22 15:14 ` Mike Rapoport
2021-04-22 15:17 ` Laurent Pinchart
2021-04-22 15:35 ` Al Viro
2021-04-22 15:32 ` Shuah Khan
2021-04-22 10:35 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-22 11:03 ` Sudip Mukherjee
2021-04-22 14:00 ` Steven Rostedt
2021-04-22 14:07 ` Jiri Kosina
2021-04-22 15:31 ` Sudip Mukherjee
2021-04-22 21:33 ` Thomas Gleixner
2021-04-22 20:28 ` Andrew Morton
2021-04-22 20:46 ` Steven Rostedt
2021-04-22 12:32 ` Martin K. Petersen
2021-04-22 15:11 ` Laurent Pinchart
2021-04-22 15:28 ` James Bottomley
2021-04-22 15:35 ` Johannes Berg
2021-04-22 15:36 ` Mark Brown
2021-04-22 15:40 ` James Bottomley
2021-04-23 9:27 ` Dan Carpenter
2021-04-22 13:24 ` Konstantin Ryabitsev
2021-04-22 14:31 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-22 15:34 ` Shuah Khan
2021-04-22 15:42 ` James Bottomley
2021-04-22 15:48 ` James Bottomley
2021-04-22 15:52 ` Steven Rostedt
2021-04-22 16:08 ` Shuah Khan
2021-04-22 16:13 ` Jan Kara
2021-04-22 17:04 ` Steven Rostedt
2021-04-22 17:08 ` Martin K. Petersen
2021-04-23 11:16 ` Jan Kara
2021-04-23 12:57 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-23 7:58 ` Mauro Carvalho Chehab
2021-04-23 10:54 ` Greg KH
2021-04-23 17:09 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 16:23 ` Konstantin Ryabitsev
2021-04-22 16:38 ` Bart Van Assche
2021-04-22 16:57 ` Leon Romanovsky
2021-04-22 18:03 ` Jiri Kosina
2021-04-22 21:26 ` Thomas Gleixner
2021-04-22 21:36 ` Jiri Kosina
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