Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Coping with the new-developer flood

On Thu, 2026-08-06 at 23:23 -0400, Theodore Tso wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 06, 2026 at 10:32:40PM -0500, Dan Carpenter wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 06, 2026 at 01:28:25PM -0400, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
> > > - actually applies
> > > - isn't against a known LTS branch
> > 
> > No one wants patches against an LTS branch.  That would violate the
> > stable rules since everything should be upstream first.
> 
> Right, we should issue a warning if it's not a backport from upstream
> (e.g., if it's against an LTS branch, it should have an
> Upstream-commit: tag).
> 
> There are some few exceptions, where a fix can't be easily backported
> to the LTS branch, and so a different way of fixing a particular
> serious patch needs to be applied to the LTS branch.  But normally
> this will be explicitly stated in the commit description, but we don't
> do that in a structured way, so it might be hard for a non-LLM bot to
> figure this out.  On the other hand, this is a pretty advanced
> technique, and it's unlikely that a new kernel developer would be
> doing something like this.  So we probably just ignore this case for a
> newcomers-focused bot.

Hi Ted,

I have a patch that doesn't need to be upstreamed, as per Eric Bigger's
comment[1], but needs to be in stable kernels.  What is the process for doing
that.

[1]https://lore.kernel.org/linux-integrity/[email protected]/

thanks,

Mimi