This is a proposal to create a patch-test dpdk tree. I welcome feedback from the dpdk community on this proposal.
This tree will consist of pre-integrated patches submitted to dpdk-dev mailing list. The purpose of this tree is to help reduce the effort in reviewing patches and providing feedback to submitters of patches. Also integrators of dpdk can benefit by having a "linux-next" like tree to clone and or try new features for performance and breadth of hardware support. It is the hope that the patch-test tree will provide early feedback to patch reviewers as well as an assurance of quality to the project maintainer. Work Flow and Process: All patches will be taken from from public submissions to dpdk-dev.org scraped from dpdk patchwork. Patches will be applied to the patch-test tree and tested against HEAD as they are received. The feedback from the testing will be provided to the community. The patch-test tree will periodically be git pull'ed from dpdk. Longer term goal: Initially, the patches will be applied along with some simple smoke tests. The longer term goal is to automate this process, apply more extensive tests and post the results in dpdk patchwork, http://dpdk.org/dev/patchwork/project/dpdk/list/ which would have an accompanying mailing list for distribution of a results summary of the tests. Submissions of test suites will be encouraged from the community including testing against compilers, architectures, devices, options etc. The purpose is to try to evolve to widen test coverage for submitted patches. --Thomas Herbert
