On Tue, Aug 19, 2008 at 12:42:29PM -0700, Joshua Drake wrote:
> Generally speaking we adhere to the following guideline for patches.
> * Security fixes are applied to all applicable branches.
> * Bugfixes are applied to all applicable branches
> * Note: A patch that addresses a known limitation is generally
> not backpatched
> * New features are always applied to -HEAD only.
>
> This is not a policy as much as a legend for developers to consider
> before they submit their patch.
But it's meaningless. "Bugfixes are applied to all applicable
branches," is either false or trivially true. It's trivially true if
you interpret "applicable branches" to mean "the ones that get the
patch". It's false if you mean "bugfix" to mean "every patch that
fixes a bug". I can think of bugs that we have lived with in older
releases because fixing them was too risky or because the bug was so
tiny or unusual as to make the risk greater than the reward.
A formal policy that's any more detailed than what's in the FAQ today
is a solution in search of a problem.
A
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Andrew Sullivan
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