[lustre-devel] [LSF/MM/BPF TOPIC] [DRAFT] Lustre client upstreaming

[NeilBrown]

On Thu, 23 Jan 2025, Alexey Lyahkov wrote:
> 
> 
>    
>     Keeping different kernels up to date with new updates is something
>     that
>     the linux-stable team does all the time.  We do it at SUSE to.  It
>     isn't
>     that hard.
>     You identify which patches *need* to be backported (ideally when
>     the
>     patch is created but that isn't always easy) and you use tools to
>     help
>     you backport them.
> 
> So Lustre developers needs control all stable kernels and think which
> patch needs back ported and send it to Distro owner 
> And for each LTS kernels on the kernel.org.. I think it increase a work
> dramatically.

No.  Lustre developers don't need to care about the stable kernels at
all.  The stable team does that an explicitly say they don't want it to
be a burden on maintainers.
The lustre team *can* decide to have some involvement - adding Fixes
tags, adding Cc: stable, even submitting backports which don't apply
trivially.  But there is no requirement from anywhere.

The lustre community only need to focus on one upstream.
Lustre develops who work for employers who sell support for older
kernels might need to handle backports to those kernels and it is in
everybody's interest not to make that unduly different e.g.  by
separating bug fixes from features etc.

The lustre community may well choose to host and share those backports,
and maybe even include them in testing.  But I suspect that would be
driven by vendors who sell support.  It certainly wouldn't be imposed by
the upstream community.

Exactly how we work with distros like Redhat, SUSE, Ubuntu would depend
on what can be negotiated with them.
Some might be willing to accept backports and release them in
maintenance updates.  Some might not.
In that case the way to support their kernel for your customers would be
to start with the source for a particular maint update, add the missing
patches, build, and distribute the result.
You probably would only need to do this for each servie-pack, not for
each update.

It isn't really different from what it done today, but it would be done
in a different way.

Thanks,
NeilBrown