On 2026-06-05 17:14:42+02:00, Petr Mladek wrote: > On Sun 2026-05-24 20:50:33, Marcos Paulo de Souza wrote: > > > The current livepatch selftests are compatible with kernel 4.12, so add > > a note about it for future developers willing to contribute with new > > tests. > > > > Signed-off-by: Marcos Paulo de Souza <[email protected]> > > --- > > tools/testing/selftests/livepatch/README | 3 +++ > > 1 file changed, 3 insertions(+) > > > > diff --git a/tools/testing/selftests/livepatch/README > > b/tools/testing/selftests/livepatch/README > > index d2035dd64a2b..293f4730b927 100644 > > --- a/tools/testing/selftests/livepatch/README > > +++ b/tools/testing/selftests/livepatch/README > > @@ -54,3 +54,6 @@ check_result(). The latter function greps the kernel's > > ring buffer for > > those strings for result comparison. Other utility functions include > > general module loading and livepatch loading helpers (waiting for patch > > transitions, sysfs entries, etc.) > > + > > +All new tests and test modules MUST be compatible with kernel version 4.12 > > and > > +later, including current upstream kernels. > > I do not have a good feeling about this. One thing is to accept > fixes/workarounds > for the backward compatibility. But forcing contributors to keep the > compatibility might be too demanding.
I agree. This patch should be dropped. I think that the first two of the series make sense on their own since the cleanup is a reasonable thing to do in general. The third one is in "why not" area. But this one is wrong. Sashiko summed it up well. > I might be wrong. But I think that you would need a pretty old > userspace to run 4.12 kernel. And most people could not get it easily. > > Honestly, I though more about this effort and I am not sure how > complicated it would be in the long term. > > I know about two pending patchsets which are breaking the backward > compatibility: > > + Better integration of callbacks and shadow variables with the states API > [1] > + Introduce replace set support [2] > > Especially the 1st one is a pain. It is 19th patches and most of them > are fixing/reworking the selftests. I think that it was the reason > why nobody reviewed it yet. And it might be even worse if we wanted > to make it backward compatible. I would not be too bothered about it. If keeping the backward compatibility is difficult, it could be put aside. This patch set is not that complicated and I think that it can be sold like reasonable changes on their own.
