[ewg] Re: [ofa-general] ANNOUNCE ofed backports for 2.6.22 kernel bits

[Arthur Jones]

hi michael, ...

On Tue, Jul 24, 2007 at 06:53:48PM +0300, Michael S. Tsirkin wrote:
> [...]
> > well, no, i _have_ been doing development on the
> > local branches in our internal repo.  i also
> > merge in changes that you make to the ofed repo
> > to our internal backport branches.  the script
> > i posted is just so that i can more easily compare
> > our internal branches to the ofed backport "branches".
> 
> How do you do the merging?

for just the backport branches, i merge different ways
from different sources:
   * from upstream, it's a pull into master and a git merge master
     into local backport branches -- i call this a reflow.
   * from local developers, it's a git pull straight into
     the backport branch, then reflow the repo.
   * from ofed, i apply the backport patch by hand and
     fixup the inevitable clashes -- either because part
     of the patch is already applied, or because context
     has changed enough for git apply to get confused.  when
     these are fixed up, reflow the repo...
   
> > > If people start developing on these branches, then
> > > eventually you will need to merge them - and git only merges
> > > them one at a time.
> > 
> > yes, i have to merge them one at a time.  i
> > still don't see how this is a problem.  backport
> > changes can be pulled in and the changes from
> > upstream can be merged in as well.  i haven't
> > had a problem with this so far.  can you be more
> > specific about what you expect will fail?
> 
> Well, as distro maintainers we need to merge a lot, from different
> people. We'll have to write all kind of scripts to do it instead of
> a plain git pull.

i can't imagine what script you would need.  can
you be more specific?  it would seem to me that you
could just pull straight in to the backport branch...

> And, I expect almost all git operations will have to be wrapped
> in a script in some way, to operate on a bush of branches.

so far, this hasn't been an issue for me.  the only
operation that i've scripted is the reflow.  for 
most work, i can just ignore the backport branches and
do the work in the (copy of) master, then reflow the
changes into the backports...

arthur