Thanks Nilay!
Ali

On Jun 14, 2013, at 5:23 PM, Steve Reinhardt <[email protected]> wrote:

> Thanks!
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jun 14, 2013 at 3:05 PM, Nilay Vaish <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> So I am going to update the gem5-stable repo over the weekend to the
>> following revision:
>> 
>> changeset:   9644:07352f119e48
>> user:        Ali Saidi <[email protected]>
>> date:        Mon Apr 22 13:20:31 2013 -0400
>> summary:     cpu: fix a switching issue with the o3 cpu.
>> 
>> If we see any major bugs being reported by users of gem5-stable, I'll try
>> to see if any patches committed after 07352f119e48 can resolve those and
>> push them to the stable repo.
>> 
>> --
>> Nilay
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, 24 May 2013, Steve Reinhardt wrote:
>> 
>> Just to add my two cents... as Ali said, Nilay's points are true but he is
>>> not the first to raise them; we have had multiple lengthy discussions on
>>> this list on defining an appropriate policy for regularly updating
>>> gem5-stable, only to have them all fall apart when it came to following
>>> through.
>>> 
>>> I'll differ semantically with Nilay and Andreas on a few points though.
>>> First, gem5-stable is stable in the sense that it changes much less
>>> frequently than gem5 (much much much less... too much less... but it does
>>> fit the definition of stable).  Second, I'd say that gem5-stable is not a
>>> "separate repository", it really is just a specific revision of the gem5
>>> tree.  It's another clone of the same repo as gem5 (and is updated just by
>>> pulling from gem5 as Ali pointed out).  It only looks like a separate
>>> repository given the way we expose it on the web site.
>>> 
>>> I'm all for giving it another go... I don't think we even need to invent a
>>> new policy, just pull out the one we agreed on last time, but find a way
>>> to
>>> make it happen.  If we conclude that we're incapable of implementing a
>>> policy (a reasonable conclusion based on history) and it's better to get
>>> rid of it than to leave it to get so stale, I'm OK with that too.
>>> 
>>> Steve
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 8:56 PM, Ali Saidi <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> 
>>> You should be able to just push to it.
>>>> 
>>>> Something like
>>>> 
>>>> hg clone http://repo.gem5.org/gem5
>>>> cd gem5
>>>> hg update -r <rev that is good/stable/whatever>
>>>> hg push 
>>>> ssh://[email protected]/gem5-**stable<http://[email protected]/gem5-stable>
>>>> 
>>>> Ali
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On May 23, 2013, at 10:49 PM, Nilay Vaish <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> What do we need to do to update the repository?
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Thu, 23 May 2013, Ali Saidi wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> I
>>>>>> On May 16, 2013, at 4:24 AM, Andreas Sandberg <[email protected]>
>>>>>> 
>>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 05/15/2013 08:36 PM, Nilay Vaish wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I think we should either remove the repo gem5-stable or put in place
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> some policy regarding gem5-stable. As of now, there is nothing stable
>>>> about
>>>> it. If we want to keep it, I suggest that we do the following:
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I definitely agree with you, the stable repository needs to go. The
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> stable version is probably way more buggy than the other version and
>>>> it is
>>>> a constant source of confusion for new users.
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I really can't see the point of a completely separate repository. All
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> other software projects I have worked on usually just have a stable
>>>> branch
>>>> for each major version and tags for each minor release. If I remember
>>>> correctly, the Linux kernel has a working repository (kind of like our
>>>> working repo) and each major release gets its own branch (e.g.,
>>>> linux-3.9.y), individual releases are tags (e.g., v3.9.1). Linux actually
>>>> has a separate repo where stable releases are maintained, but I think
>>>> that
>>>> is just a way of reflecting the fact that there are different maintainers
>>>> of the stable repository.
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> I also agree, but just as a warning, if you search the email achieves
>>>>>> 
>>>>> you'll find that we've come up with plans before. The issue has been
>>>> sticking with them. I think even updating the stable repository every 3-4
>>>> months from the mainline would be reasonable, but it being over a year
>>>> old
>>>> isn't great.
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> a. update gem5-stable to gem5 every four months or so. Before
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> updating, there would be a lean period of say 2-3 weeks when only
>>>> bug-fixes
>>>> would be committed to gem5. At the end of the period, gem5-stable would
>>>> be
>>>> updated to gem5. I propose updating gem5-stable on February 15th, June
>>>> 15th
>>>> and October 15th every year. We can have lean periods starting from 1st
>>>> February, 1st June and 1st October.
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I'm quite happy with this approach.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> b. all patches that are committed to gem5 should be evaluated by
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> developers as to whether they are bug fixes or not. If they are, and
>>>> the
>>>> bug is also present in gem5-stable, then those patches should also be
>>>> committed to gem5-stable. I expect the extra work, in most cases, would
>>>> be
>>>> limited to applying the patch to gem5-stable and running the regression
>>>> tests.
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I think we need a hybrid approach, let's call it c). Similar to a), we
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> could create a new stable branch (e.g., gem5-2013q1.x) 4 times or 2
>>>> times a
>>>> year. The only changes allowed to such a branch should be bug fixes
>>>> (preferably fixes that don't affect statistics). The branch is allowed to
>>>> cool for say 2 weeks before it is tagged for release (v2013q1.0). Once
>>>> enough bug fixes have accumulated, we just create a new release tag on
>>>> the
>>>> branch. Merging bug fixes shouldn't be too hard since it would just be a
>>>> matter of cherry-picking changesets from the master branch.
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Unlike approach b), this approach wouldn't run the risk of diverging
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> too much from mainline, while at the same time providing stable
>>>> releases at
>>>> regular intervals.
>>>> 
>>>>> I'm ok with this except that it's quite a it's more work, and we
>>>>>> 
>>>>> haven't even managed to just update the stable repository consistantly
>>>> over
>>>> the years.
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> We might want to take this opportunity to migrate our repositories to
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>> GIT. In general, most people are more experienced at using GIT than
>>>> Mercurial. There are roughly 10x more GIT repos than HG repos [1], so
>>>> it's
>>>> probably safe to assume that there is roughly 10x as many developers who
>>>> know GIT. We already have several internal GIT clones of gem5 in the
>>>> group
>>>> and I have seen at least one other online (a port to Warped). Besides, it
>>>> seems like most tools have better support for Git (e.g., Jenkins has
>>>> almost
>>>> as many new Git installations per months as there are Mercurial
>>>> installations in total).
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> our fencing about git continues :)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Ali
>>>>>> 
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