Re: merge window is open. bpf-next is still open.

From: Alexei Starovoitov <alexei.starovoitov@gmail.com>
To: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb.auug.org.au>
Cc: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>,
	Daniel Borkmann <daniel@iogearbox.net>, bpf <bpf@vger.kernel.org>,
	Network Development <netdev@vger.kernel.org>,
	Kernel Team <Kernel-team@fb.com>,
	"David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>
Subject: Re: merge window is open. bpf-next is still open.
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 14:03:07 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20201012210307.byn6jx7dxmsxq7dt@ast-mbp> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20201013075016.61028eee@canb.auug.org.au>

On Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 07:50:16AM +1100, Stephen Rothwell wrote:
> Hi Alexei,
> 
> On Mon, 12 Oct 2020 13:15:16 -0700 Alexei Starovoitov <alexei.starovoitov@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > You mean keep pushing into bpf-next/master ?
> > The only reason is linux-next.
> > But coming to think about it again, let's fix linux-next process instead.
> > 
> > Stephen,
> > could you switch linux-next to take from bpf.git during the merge window
> > and then go back to bpf-next.git after the merge window?
> > That will help everyone. CIs wouldn't need to flip flop.
> > People will keep basing their features on bpf-next/master all the time, etc.
> > The only inconvenience is for linux-next. I think that's a reasonable trade-off.
> > In other words bpf-next/master will always be open for new features.
> > After the merge window bpf-next/master will get rebased to rc1.
> 
> I already fetch bpf.git#master all the time (that is supposed to be
> fixes for the current release and gets merged into the net tree, right?)

Correct. That part doesn't change.

> How about this: you create a for-next branch in the bpf-next tree and I
> fetch that instead of your master branch.  What you do is always work
> in your master branch and whenever it is "ready", you just merge master
> into for-next and that is what linux-next works with (net-next still
> merges your master branch as now).  So the for-next branch consists
> only of consecutive merges of your master branch.
> 
> During the merge window you do *not* merge master into for-next (and,
> in fact, everything in for-next should have been merged into the
> net-next tree anyway, right?) and then when -rc1 is released, you reset
> for-next to -rc1 and start merging master into it again.
> 
> This way the commit SHA1s are stable and I don't have to remember to
> switch branches/trees every merge window (which I would forget
> sometimes for sure :-)).

That is a great idea! I think that should work well for everyone.
Let's do exactly that.
Just pushed bpf-next/for-next branch.

I'll send a patch to update Documentation/bpf/bpf_devel_QA.rst
with all these details later today.