RISC-V for-next/fixes (cont'd from PW sync)

From: "Björn Töpel" <bjorn@kernel.org>
To: "Conor Dooley" <conor@kernel.org>,
	"Paul Walmsley" <paul.walmsley@sifive.com>,
	"Palmer Dabbelt" <palmer@dabbelt.com>,
	"Albert Ou" <aou@eecs.berkeley.edu>,
	"Emil Renner Berthing" <kernel@esmil.dk>,
	"Samuel Holland" <samuel.holland@sifive.com>,
	"Alexandre Ghiti" <alexghiti@rivosinc.com>,
	"Björn Töpel" <bjorn@rivosinc.com>,
	linux-riscv@lists.infradead.org,
	"Andy Chiu" <andy.chiu@sifive.com>
Cc: Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org
Subject: RISC-V for-next/fixes (cont'd from PW sync)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2024 20:57:50 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <87ttkro3b5.fsf@all.your.base.are.belong.to.us> (raw)

Hi,

I figured I'd put some words on the "how to update the RISC-V
for-next/fixes branches [1]" that came up on the patchwork call today.

In RISC-V land, the for-next branch is used for features, and typically
sent as a couple of PRs to Linus when the merge window is open. The
fixes branch is sent as PR(s) between the RCs of a release.

Today, the baseline for for-next/fixes is the CURRENT_RELEASE-rc1, and
features/fixes are based on that.

This has IMO a couple of issues:

1. fixes is missing the non-RISC-V fixes from releases later than
   -rc1, which makes it harder for contributors.
2. for-next does not have the fixes from RISC-V/rest of the kernel,
   and it's hard for contributors to test the work on for-next (buggy,
   no fixes, and sometime missing deps).

I used to spend a whole lot of mine time in the netdev tree of the
kernel, and this is how they manage it (Thanks Kuba!):

Netdev (here exchanged to RISC-V trees), fast-forward fixes, and then
cross-merge fixes into for-next -- for every -rc.

E.g., say fixes is submitted for -rc2 to Linus, once he pulls, do:

  git push --delete origin $SOMETAG
  git tag -d $SOMETAG
  git pull --ff-only --tags git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git
  build / test / push out.

Then pull fixes into for-next:

  git pull --tags git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/riscv/linux.git fixes

Personally (obviously biased), I think this would be easier for
contributors. Any downsides from a RISC-V perspective?

Björn

[1] git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/riscv/linux.git