What gets patched onto previous releases?

[Anthony Merlino <an...@vergeaero.com>]

Hi all,

So I just ran into an issue on both 9.0 and 9.1 with SD card operations.
After digging for a bit, I found the issue was addressed here:

https://github.com/apache/incubator-nuttx/commit/e21dd687555180b41e845a2c0676fdc96fc952ed

I completely understand that it takes work to patch and regression test
previous releases, but I just want to understand our policy and threshold
for what gets backported.

Best,
Anthony

Re: What gets patched onto previous releases?

[Brennan Ashton <ba...@brennanashton.com>]

On Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 9:35 AM Anthony Merlino <an...@vergeaero.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> So I just ran into an issue on both 9.0 and 9.1 with SD card operations.
> After digging for a bit, I found the issue was addressed here:
>
>
> https://github.com/apache/incubator-nuttx/commit/e21dd687555180b41e845a2c0676fdc96fc952ed
>
> I completely understand that it takes work to patch and regression test
> previous releases, but I just want to understand our policy and threshold
> for what gets backported.
>
> Best,
> Anthony
>

There are a couple things that we have thought about backporting before,
but under the ASF workflow it takes weeks for a release to get approved
since it has to go through two voting windows and the IPMC is usually where
it sits for most of it.

That said happy to organize some patch releases especially for the two I
have been RM for if we think it's worth doing.

At the same time we are due for another release. That would already have
these changes.

--Brennan

>

Re: What gets patched onto previous releases?

[Alin Jerpelea <je...@gmail.com>]

I think that we should consider making the last release from a series an
LTS release and patch that one for a decided period (ex 12 months)
This way a downstream project that uses an older release can always use the
latest release that is API compatible without the need to patch the project.

If you need help with the patches and release I offer to help

//Alin

On Fri, 18 Sep 2020, 16:06 Gregory Nutt, <sp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> > I completely understand that it takes work to patch and regression test
> > previous releases, but I just want to understand our policy and threshold
> > for what gets backported.
>
> There should be an established policy.  I agree on that.
>
> In the old BDFL model, I only updated releases via patches and only for
> about two weeks after the release.  The only purpose being to assure
> that the release was a valid stable snapshot of the development.  After
> that, well then the release just has bugs.
>
>  From Brennan's response, it seems like we are limited in the same way,
> not by policy but by process.
>
> But perhaps we should consider an LTS release?  Perhaps the last in
> series of releases with the same major revision number should be an LTS
> release?
>
>

Re: What gets patched onto previous releases?

[Gregory Nutt <sp...@gmail.com>]

> I completely understand that it takes work to patch and regression test
> previous releases, but I just want to understand our policy and threshold
> for what gets backported.

There should be an established policy.  I agree on that.

In the old BDFL model, I only updated releases via patches and only for 
about two weeks after the release.  The only purpose being to assure 
that the release was a valid stable snapshot of the development.  After 
that, well then the release just has bugs.

 From Brennan's response, it seems like we are limited in the same way, 
not by policy but by process.

But perhaps we should consider an LTS release?  Perhaps the last in 
series of releases with the same major revision number should be an LTS 
release?