On Tue, 23 Dec 2025 06:43:45 -0500 Sasha Levin [off-list ref] wrote:

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Yes, -stable maintainers have been asked to only backport patches where
the MM developers asked for that, with cc:stable.  There may be
slipups, but as far as I know this is working.

I don't actually know how they determine which patches need this
special treatment.  Pathname?  Signed-off-by:akpm?

I guess it is pathname, based on ignore_list file [1] of stable-queue repo.

[1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git/tree/ignore_list#n16

Oh, that's a bit sad.

- other trees sometimes mess with mm/ and they probably aren't aware
 that they need an explicit cc:stable.

- misses drivers/block/zram and probably various other things that
 the MM team maintains.

Oh well, I guess simple mm/* coverage is good enough.  But I do worry a
little that useful fixes coming into mm/ via other trees without
cc:stable will get missed.

How should we improve the filter? mm/ AND signed off by akpm?

I think just signed-off-by:akpm please.  That way, mm fixes which come
in via other trees without cc:stable get backported.

Obviously we'd prefer that such patches get appropriate consideration
by the MM developers but sometimes other-tree people aren't that
cooperative.  In this case it's better to backport the thing rather
than missing a fix?