On 03/12/2012 08:23 PM, Alexander Graf wrote:
Let's take a real world example from Linux here. 3.3-rc5 had a pretty nasty
compile bug that made the build break on any 32 bit target when autofs was
activated. I posted the bug plus a small bugfix upstream.
We have a different model than Linux. The development tree is only open for a
short period of time followed by RCs.
Our development tree is open for a long time. There isn't as great a sense of
urgency to fix things out-of-band when you're talking about an active
development cycle. If we were in -rc, it'd be a completely different
discussion.
Really, the issue here is communication. The default assumption is that a
subsystem is owned by the subsystem maintainer. If you want a patch to go
through another channel, just say so. It happens constantly. It's very normal
for people to ask me to apply a patch directly instead of doing a PULL request.
But honestly, if we made a habit of cherry picking patches in areas with an
active maintainer, we would now be talking about how we don't respect
subsystems.