From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1755014AbYJOXIx (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:08:53 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1753464AbYJOXIp (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:08:45 -0400 Received: from 74-93-104-97-Washington.hfc.comcastbusiness.net ([74.93.104.97]:41511 "EHLO sunset.davemloft.net" rhost-flags-OK-FAIL-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753457AbYJOXIo (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:08:44 -0400 Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:08:21 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <20081015.160821.143702739.davem@davemloft.net> To: akpm@linux-foundation.org Cc: alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk, greg@kroah.com, sfr@canb.auug.org.au, linux-next@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: is the weeks before -rc1 the time to really be working on -next? From: David Miller In-Reply-To: <20081015155353.f15a996e.akpm@linux-foundation.org> References: <20081015145606.2af3baf1.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <20081015233607.54c1d6b8@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <20081015155353.f15a996e.akpm@linux-foundation.org> X-Mailer: Mew version 6.1 on Emacs 22.1 / Mule 5.0 (SAKAKI) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org From: Andrew Morton Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:53:53 -0700 > But the problem here is that once linux-next merges your patches, you > no longer have a tree on which to base your patches! You need to get > your hands on "linux-next without my stuff" to maintain them. I know this doesn't work for you, but if you ran -mm just like any other GIT tree it might mesh a whole lot better. And in reality that kind of situation isn't a big deal in the context of -next. People are rebasing their trees all the time there, and it mostly seems to work itself out. It's a lot more work for a contributor to do work against -mm, since the response to "which -mm should I work against and where do I get it from" is a bit more involved that just "pull from this GIT tree and do your work on top of that." And just like networking we could have Stephen treat the -mm GIT tree as "important" which roughly means that other conflicting trees will be knocked out of a -next release in deference to -mm. Those people will have to fix their stuff, not you. And you'll always therefore get coverage in -next. Unlike the general sentiment expressed here, I think -next is helping. Even if only because Stephen pokes people with trees causing problems on a daily basis.