Re: Aix7xxx unstable in 2.4.21-rc2? (RE: Linux 2.4.21-rc2)

James Bottomley (James.Bottomley@steeleye.com)
24 May 2003 11:55:54 -0400


On Sat, 2003-05-24 at 10:51, Justin T. Gibbs wrote:
> Just for clarification. Marcelo never asked me for a fix. The only
> mail I received from him was an informational message indicating that
> the code was being backed out. If I had been provided an opportunity
> to fix the problem, I would have. Considering that the fix has been
> available long before RC2 was cut (May 1st.), it's not hard to see that
> getting a proper fix required nothing more than just upgrading the driver
> or contacting its maintainer to get a paired down fix.

The kernel, as you have been told several times before, follows a push
model, not a pull one. Just looking after SCSI, I don't have time to go
around asking all the driver writers for updates; likewise Marcelo
really doesn't have the time to do this for everything in the 2.4
kernel.

Every maintained piece of the kernel has a listed maintainer to whom the
bug reports are supposed to go. The expectation is that these
maintainers will see the bug reports and pro-actively provide fixes
before they become release issues. The maintainers also do
enhancements, *but* these enhancements should follow the proper release
cycle (i.e. in at the early -pre stage).

Could you please get with the program? The bug fix vs enhancement issue
hasn't previously mattered that much for 2.5, but I anticipate we'll be
following a similar model when 2.6 is released.

James

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