1Everything you ever wanted to know about Linux 2.6 -stable releases. 2 3Rules on what kind of patches are accepted, and which ones are not, into the 4"-stable" tree: 5 6 - It must be obviously correct and tested. 7 - It cannot be 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, something 14 critical. 15 - New device IDs and quirks are also accepted. 16 - No "theoretical race condition" issues, unless an explanation of how the 17 race can be exploited is also provided. 18 - It cannot contain any "trivial" fixes in it (spelling changes, 19 whitespace cleanups, etc). 20 - It must follow the Documentation/SubmittingPatches rules. 21 - It or an equivalent fix must already exist in Linus' tree (upstream). 22 23 24Procedure for submitting patches to the -stable tree: 25 26 - Send the patch, after verifying that it follows the above rules, to 27 stable@vger.kernel.org. You must note the upstream commit ID in the 28 changelog of your submission, as well as the kernel version you wish 29 it to be applied to. 30 - To have the patch automatically included in the stable tree, add the tag 31 Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org 32 in the sign-off area. Once the patch is merged it will be applied to 33 the stable tree without anything else needing to be done by the author 34 or subsystem maintainer. 35 - If the patch requires other patches as prerequisites which can be 36 cherry-picked than this can be specified in the following format in 37 the sign-off area: 38 39 Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org> # .32.x: a1f84a3: sched: Check for idle 40 Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org> # .32.x: 1b9508f: sched: Rate-limit newidle 41 Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org> # .32.x: fd21073: sched: Fix affinity logic 42 Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org> # .32.x 43 Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo@elte.hu> 44 45 The tag sequence has the meaning of: 46 git cherry-pick a1f84a3 47 git cherry-pick 1b9508f 48 git cherry-pick fd21073 49 git cherry-pick <this commit> 50 51 - The sender will receive an ACK when the patch has been accepted into the 52 queue, or a NAK if the patch is rejected. This response might take a few 53 days, according to the developer's schedules. 54 - If accepted, the patch will be added to the -stable queue, for review by 55 other developers and by the relevant subsystem maintainer. 56 - Security patches should not be sent to this alias, but instead to the 57 documented security@kernel.org address. 58 59 60Review cycle: 61 62 - When the -stable maintainers decide for a review cycle, the patches will be 63 sent to the review committee, and the maintainer of the affected area of 64 the patch (unless the submitter is the maintainer of the area) and CC: to 65 the linux-kernel mailing list. 66 - The review committee has 48 hours in which to ACK or NAK the patch. 67 - If the patch is rejected by a member of the committee, or linux-kernel 68 members object to the patch, bringing up issues that the maintainers and 69 members did not realize, the patch will be dropped from the queue. 70 - At the end of the review cycle, the ACKed patches will be added to the 71 latest -stable release, and a new -stable release will happen. 72 - Security patches will be accepted into the -stable tree directly from the 73 security kernel team, and not go through the normal review cycle. 74 Contact the kernel security team for more details on this procedure. 75 76 77Review committee: 78 79 - This is made up of a number of kernel developers who have volunteered for 80 this task, and a few that haven't. 81