On Mon, Apr 16, 2018 at 11:41 AM, Steven Rostedt rostedt@goodmis.org wrote:
I never said the second bug fix should not have been backported. I even said that the first bug "didn't go far enough".
You're still not getting it.
The "didn't go far enough" means that the bug fix is *BUGGY*. It needs to be reverted.
I hope the answer was not to revert the bug and put back the possible bad memory access in to keep API.
But that very must *IS* the answer. If there isn't a fix for the ABI breakage, then the first bugfix needs to be reverted.
Really. There is no such thing as "but the fix was more important than the bug it introduced".
This is why we started with the whole "actively revert things that introduce regressions". Because people always kept claiming that "but but I fixed a worse bug, and it's better to fix the worse bug even if it then introduces another problem, because the other problem is lesser".
NO.
We're better off making *no* progress, than making "unsteady progress".
Really. Seriously.
If you cannot fix a bug without introducing another one, don't do it. Don't do kernel development.
The whole mentality you show is NOT ACCEPTABLE.
So the *only* answer is: "fix the bug _and_ keep the API". There is no other choice.
The whole "I fixed one problem but introduced another" is not how we work. You should damn well know that. There are no excuses.
And yes, sometimes that means jumping through hoops. But that's what it takes to keep users happy.
Linus