[repstosb]

Finding defects is a good thing, and fixing defects is a good thing. Adding new features can be a good thing as long as it doesn't introduce or uncover too many new defects in previously stable code. But what is lacking in your development process that you keep finding "critical" defects that could affect a large number of users during the merge window?

It seems like bcachefs would benefit from parallel development spirals, where unproven code is guarded by experimental flags and recommended only for users who are prepared to monitor and apply patches outside of the main kernel release cycle, while the default configuration of the mainline version goes through a more thorough test and validation process and more rarely sees "surprise" breakage.

It certainly appears that Linus can't tell the difference between your new feature introductions and your maintenance fixes, and that should trigger some self-reflection. He clearly couldn't let all of the thousands of different kernel components operate in the style you seem to prefer for bacachefs.

[koverstreet]

> It seems like bcachefs would benefit from parallel development spirals, where unproven code is guarded by experimental flags and recommended only for users who are prepared to monitor and apply patches outside of the main kernel release cycle, while the default configuration of the mainline version goes through a more thorough test and validation process and more rarely sees "surprise" breakage.

Maybe if you're a distance observer who isn't otherwise participating in the project

What's the saying about too many cooks in the kitchen?

These concerns aren't coming from the people who are actually using it. They're coming from people who are accustomed to the old ways of doing things and have no idea what working closely with modern test infrastructure is like.

There wasn't anything unusual about the out-of-merge-window patches I was sending Linus except for volume, which is exactly what you'd expect in a rapidly stabilizing filesystem. If anything I've been more conservative about what I send that other subsystems.

> It certainly appears that Linus can't tell the difference between your new feature introductions and your maintenance fixes, and that should trigger some self-reflection. He clearly couldn't let all of the thousands of different kernel components operate in the style you seem to prefer for bacachefs.

If Linus can't figure out which subsystems have QA problems and which don't, that's his problem, not mine.

[wizzwizz4]

Concerns about general policy need to be handled separately from individual cases. You needed to play along, advocate for your position, explain your position (e.g. demonstrate how your processes eliminate certain classes of errors; or find some objective way to measure QA problems and present the stats), and push for a holistic process change that supports your use-case. That process change would need input from other people, and might end up very different to your original proposal, but it could have happened. Instead, you've burned (and continue to burn) bridges.

Linus's job is not to make the very next version of the kernel as good as it can be. It's to keep the whole system of Linux kernel maintenance going. (Maintaining the quality of the next version is almost a side-effect.) Asking him to make frequent exceptions to process is the equivalent of going "this filesystem is making poor decisions: let's hex-edit /dev/sda to allocate the blocks better". Your priority is making the next version of bcachefs as good as it can be, and you're confident that merging your patchsets won't break the kernel, but that's entirely irrelevant.

> If Linus can't figure out which subsystems have QA problems and which don't, that's his problem, not mine.

You have missed the point by a mile.