[PATCH] Better advice on using topic branches for kernel development

Luck, Tony· Oct 21, 2010, 16:29 UTC · lore

Linus Torvalds wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> The real problem is that maintainers often pick random - and not at
> all stable - points for their development to begin with. They just
> pick some random "this is where Linus -git tree is today", and do
> their development on top of that. THAT is the problem - they are
> unaware that there's some nasty bug in that version.

Maybe they do this because they read it in the Git user-manual.

Fix the manual to give them better guidance.

Signed-off-by: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>

---

Originally posted on October 1st ... no comments received.

Show changes to Documentation/user-manual.txt +6 −3

diff --git a/Documentation/user-manual.txt b/Documentation/user-manual.txt
index fecc4eb..66a249d 100644
--- a/Documentation/user-manual.txt
+++ b/Documentation/user-manual.txt
@@ -2171,11 +2171,14 @@ $ git push mytree release
 
 Now to apply some patches from the community.  Think of a short
 snappy name for a branch to hold this patch (or related group of
-patches), and create a new branch from the current tip of Linus's
-branch:
+patches), and create a new branch from a recent stable tag of
+Linus's branch. Picking a stable base for your branch will:
+1) help you: by avoiding inclusion of unrelated and perhaps lightly
+tested changes
+2) help future bug hunters that use "git bisect" to find problems
 
 -------------------------------------------------
-$ git checkout -b speed-up-spinlocks origin
+$ git checkout -b speed-up-spinlocks v2.6.35
 -------------------------------------------------
 
 Now you apply the patch(es), run some tests, and commit the change(s).  If

Jonathan Nieder· Oct 21, 2010, 16:32 UTC · re: Luck, Tony · lore

Re: [PATCH] Better advice on using topic branches for kernel development

Hi Tony,

Luck, Tony wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> Maybe they do this because they read it in the Git user-manual.
> 
> Fix the manual to give them better guidance.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Tony Luck <tony.luck@intel.com>

[...]

> Originally posted on October 1st ... no comments received.

No comments received, but applied to "maint". Sorry for the confusion.

Occasionally there has been discussion of automating notification that a patch was applied. Maybe someone on the git@ list might consider it worth trying (or maybe not).

Thanks.

patchBetter advice on using topic branches for kernel development