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1 | Everything you ever wanted to know about Linux 2.6 -stable releases. | ||
2 | |||
3 | Rules on what kind of patches are accepted, and what ones are not, into | ||
4 | the "-stable" tree: | ||
5 | |||
6 | - It must be obviously correct and tested. | ||
7 | - It can not bigger than 100 lines, with context. | ||
8 | - It must fix only one thing. | ||
9 | - It must fix a real bug that bothers people (not a, "This could be a | ||
10 | problem..." type thing.) | ||
11 | - It must fix a problem that causes a build error (but not for things | ||
12 | marked CONFIG_BROKEN), an oops, a hang, data corruption, a real | ||
13 | security issue, or some "oh, that's not good" issue. In short, | ||
14 | something critical. | ||
15 | - No "theoretical race condition" issues, unless an explanation of how | ||
16 | the race can be exploited. | ||
17 | - It can not contain any "trivial" fixes in it (spelling changes, | ||
18 | whitespace cleanups, etc.) | ||
19 | - It must be accepted by the relevant subsystem maintainer. | ||
20 | - It must follow Documentation/SubmittingPatches rules. | ||
21 | |||
22 | |||
23 | Procedure for submitting patches to the -stable tree: | ||
24 | |||
25 | - Send the patch, after verifying that it follows the above rules, to | ||
26 | stable@kernel.org. | ||
27 | - The sender will receive an ack when the patch has been accepted into | ||
28 | the queue, or a nak if the patch is rejected. This response might | ||
29 | take a few days, according to the developer's schedules. | ||
30 | - If accepted, the patch will be added to the -stable queue, for review | ||
31 | by other developers. | ||
32 | - Security patches should not be sent to this alias, but instead to the | ||
33 | documented security@kernel.org. | ||
34 | |||
35 | |||
36 | Review cycle: | ||
37 | |||
38 | - When the -stable maintainers decide for a review cycle, the patches | ||
39 | will be sent to the review committee, and the maintainer of the | ||
40 | affected area of the patch (unless the submitter is the maintainer of | ||
41 | the area) and CC: to the linux-kernel mailing list. | ||
42 | - The review committee has 48 hours in which to ack or nak the patch. | ||
43 | - If the patch is rejected by a member of the committee, or linux-kernel | ||
44 | members object to the patch, bringing up issues that the maintainers | ||
45 | and members did not realize, the patch will be dropped from the | ||
46 | queue. | ||
47 | - At the end of the review cycle, the acked patches will be added to | ||
48 | the latest -stable release, and a new -stable release will happen. | ||
49 | - Security patches will be accepted into the -stable tree directly from | ||
50 | the security kernel team, and not go through the normal review cycle. | ||
51 | Contact the kernel security team for more details on this procedure. | ||
52 | |||
53 | |||
54 | Review committe: | ||
55 | |||
56 | - This will be made up of a number of kernel developers who have | ||
57 | volunteered for this task, and a few that haven't. | ||
58 | |||