On Wed, Jul 23, 2008 at 11:03:10AM +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote:

ok, lemme do a bit of merge window flaming here, in defense of Andrew.

This commit history:

  commit 4a0b2b4dbe1335b8b9886ba3dc85a145d5d938ed
  Author:     Andi Kleen [off-list ref]
  AuthorDate: Tue Jul 1 18:48:41 2008 +0200
  Commit:     Greg Kroah-Hartman [off-list ref]
  CommitDate: Mon Jul 21 21:55:02 2008 -0700

    sysdev: Pass the attribute to the low level sysdev show/store function

  [...]

    I converted all users in tree to the new show/store prototype. It's 
    a single huge patch to avoid unbisectable sections.

    Runtime tested: x86-32, x86-64
    Compiled only: ia64, powerpc
    Not compile tested/only grep converted: sh, arm, avr32

covers a relatively trivial patch that we'd normally not notice, but it 
is ... a ... misrepresentation of the true situation on several levels:

1) The changelog. The updated patch Andi sent did not declare the other
   incremental changes (to sched.c) it also included freshly.

Andi's original patch that he sent me _did_ declare that he had updated
the patch, I didn't change the changelog as it didn't make sense to do
so.

2) The date. This patch did not originate on Jul 1 - if Andi sent a 
   material update yesterday it should say Jul 21, not Jul 1.

Again, my fault, I kept the original email headers and just updated the
patch portion.  It's easier for me to do that using quilt, hence the
lack of the date change.

3) The justification. Huge atomic patches are fine and can indeed be 
   much simpler than a gradual switchover, _iff_ they are done 
   perfectly. If there's any doubt then they are by far not the only 
   option to pursue - we've done finegrained API changeovers for years.

This kind of API change is atomic, sorry.  It was tiny enough that it
didn't justify a big rework (like I did on the recent device_create()
stuff for example) to get it modified.

... which all we still wouldnt worry much about (the whole change is 
relatively trivial), if it had been done more carefully without wrecking 
Andrew's workflow in the middle of the merge window.

I understand, and I apologize.

thanks,

greg k-h