[coreboot] Patch management

ron minnich rminnich at gmail.com
Sun May 31 19:56:33 CEST 2009


On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 9:01 PM, Peter Stuge <peter at stuge.se> wrote:

> I would like to request a better patch management system than this
> mailing list. The fact the above "ping" is now a part of our
> development process is a very strong indication that things are not
> functioning very well.

it's a hard problem. I'm on several projects. They are all non-ideal
in some way. Linux sucks in patches at the rate of 30,000 a year or
so; that's fine performance but some feel (me included) that the
kernel is "de-cohering": it no longer has the small tight feel and
coherence of vision that it might have once had. Plan 9 still has the
same tight feel and coherence but at a cost: important patches seem to
linger on the vine for (i am not kidding here) years .

Coreboot is trickier than a kernel, as trivial errors can lead to
systems that can not be recovered. I especially avoid acking flashrom
patches because I can't test most of them. Others I know don't like to
NAK, but they're not comfortable with an ACK either; they don't like
the code but they don't want to hold up progress.

All in all, I think the process works. Yes, it is not ideal.  Yes, it
could be better, but so could everything.

ron




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