[MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Regression tracking & fixing: current state, problems, and next steps

[MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Regression tracking & fixing: current state, problems, and next steps

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

[sending a copy to this list, now that the old ksummit-discuss list is
DEFUNCT, where I posted the msg already a few days ago:
https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-discuss/2022-June/007340.html
]

This session is meant to complement the kernel summit session with the
same title I just submitted separately
(https://lore.kernel.org/ksummit/0ea86ba8-97a4-0b25-406d-ea261c82292a@leemhuis.info/
). The idea is to summarize in this session what has been discussed and
agreed on in that ksummit session and further discuss issues that need
further discussion.

I used a similar model in 2017 and it seems it worked well for everyone.
What exactly will be discussed in this sessions depends on how the
kernel summit session evolves, but I expect the following topics might
need further discussion among the core maintainers (for details on any
of these points please see the kernel summit submission linked above):

 * How slow quite a few mainline regressions are resolved, as even
simple regression fixes sometimes linger in -next for weeks before being
mainlined.

 * Do we care that some regressions (and many bugs) reported in
bugzilla.kernel.org are never forwarded to the maintainers? And if so,
what do we want to do about it? I tried to keep an eye on things, but
that's sometimes quite time-consuming.

 * Should I track all or some regression with regzbot that were reported
by CI systems?

 * open question: Am I holding this regression tracking thingy right or
do you want me to do it differently somehow? Or is there anything else I
can do to make my regression tracking efforts more useful for maintainers?

Ciao, Thorsten

Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Regression tracking & fixing: current state, problems, and next steps

[Thorsten Leemhuis]

On 20.06.22 14:33, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> 
> This session is meant to complement the kernel summit session with the
> same title I just submitted separately
> (https://lore.kernel.org/ksummit/0ea86ba8-97a4-0b25-406d-ea261c82292a@leemhuis.info/
> ). The idea is to summarize in this session what has been discussed and
> agreed on in that ksummit session and further discuss issues that need
> further discussion.

If anyone is interested in the slides I showed yesterday, find them here
(note, I skipped a few because some things had come up earlier already):
http://www.leemhuis.info/files/talks/202209-kernel_maintainers_summit-regtracking.pdf

The slides for the kernel summit session I held on Wednesday can be
found here (the first section is similar, but more detailed):
https://lpc.events/event/16/contributions/1222/attachments/1105/2123/Leemhuis-regtracking.pdf

While at it, here also the links to regzbot's documentation:
https://gitlab.com/knurd42/regzbot/-/blob/main/docs/getting_started.md
https://gitlab.com/knurd42/regzbot/-/blob/main/docs/reference.md

And for completeness, here is the link to the rendered version of
Documentation/process/handling-regressions.rst:
https://docs.kernel.org/process/handling-regressions.html

Ciao, Thorsten