[Gnu-arch-users] netfilter patch-o-matic

[Zenaan Harkness]

Arch/ tla might have some application here.
If anyone is a netfilter/ networking type person...

>From Proceedings of Netfilter Developer Workshop 2004:
http://lwn.net/Articles/103858/

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6. Status patch-o-matic NG

6.1. General discussion about patch-o-matic-NG

 First there was a general discussion on the use, purpose and future of
patch-o-matig-NG.

 According to Harald, users are apparently confued (what should they apply,
what makes sense). Also, the categorization of patches (e.g. "WorksForMe") is
not very helpful either. He suggested to add a group/category called "kernel
track" that would mark all patches that are scheduled to end up in the kernel
sooner or later.

 Should optimization/cleanup be included in pom-NG, or should go straight into
the kernel?

 RR: pom was intended for 3rd parties, new extensions originally, use -mm for
Netfilter patches

 HW: conservative about pushing things into the kernel (bugs)

 PM: it's a bad idea to put a patch first into pom, and then submit

 One of the suggestion was to publish a netfilter-test kernel tree that would
be the base of all develoment

 Also, we should have some system to keep track of the patches, bugfixes. It
has to be clearly visible which patch or bugfix went into what kernel release.
This also has to include the history of old patches.

 Rusty already has something similar (without the history), and Jeremy notes
that the PPC64 development team apparently has something similar, too.

 BS proposes the use of bugzilla for this. HN notes that there are old bugzilla
entries that never get closed. HW adds that bugzilla is easier to search and
maintain, even for stuff that is sitting there for a long time.

 It is concluded that patches shoud be categorized into bugfix / new feature
patches. Bugfix patches are recommended for everybody to apply, new features
not neccessarily.

 Patch-o-matic is only to be used by new matches, targets, conntrack and NAT
helpers. No core infrastructure bugfixes, enhancements or optimizations should
go into patch-o-matic.
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