Open Stack

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Hi all,

I'm concerned that in some cases [1] we merge patches in stable
branches before they reach master. My understanding is that in general
such approach may lead to multiple kinds of issues:

1. if a master patch is not merged in the end due to negative review
feedback, we will need to cope with a stable-only patch.

2. if a master patch is modified later before its merge, we need to
cope with the need to apply last minute modifications to stable
branches. In the worst cases, the difference won't even be noticed,
and we'll result in unneeded differences between master and stable code.

3. also, if a patch is merged into e.g. havana and not icehouse, and
then a user upgrades to icehouse, he will see a regression due to the
missing patch that was once fixed in a prev-stable release.

We could say that there are some cases where the strict ordering of
backports is not applicable, like in [1]. Quoting Thierry,

"
@Ihar: stable branch changes come in two categories. There are project
bugfixes (which are straight backports of stuff that has to land in
master to ensure we have no regression) and infrastructure patches (to
keep the test infrastructure working on stable branches).
The latter do NOT have to land in master: in most cases, they are not
even applicable there. This is basically a branch-specific
infrastructure patch to keep the stable branch running. The fact that
it has a master "equivalent" is more of a coincidence. Not having that
patch in master wouldn't be a regression.
To answer your question, if the patch has to be reworked, that would
result in subsequent patchsets.
"

So some cases are not affected by problem (3), but still, (1) and (2)
apply.

I understand that in some cases we should not wait for long, like
security fixes or infrastructure being broken right now. Though the
case in question is not the latter (the infrastructure will become
broken only if infra team enables latest tox without making sure all
the branches are properly patched). So I think the following quote by
Sean is not correct:

"stable/* is going to be horribly broken if this doesn't land.
We could let all the stable branches die, but I don't think that's sane."

...and hence, the rush with which we're pushing those patches into
stable branches is not justified.

I would like to hear from all of you on the matter, and I'm going to
update our stable workflow rules based on your feedback.

Comments?

[1]: https://review.openstack.org/#/c/109750/

/Ihar
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