Re: [Xen-devel] backporting considerations (Re: [PATCH v9 0/9] xen/x86: various XPTI speedups)

["Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx>]

>>> On 16.05.18 at 16:53, <dunlapg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Wed, May 16, 2018 at 3:01 PM, Jan Beulich <JBeulich@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>>> On 16.05.18 at 15:18, <dunlapg@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> If the latter, I think the same argument applies: turning on XPTI is a
>>> requirement for many people, and thus represents a pretty hefty
>>> performance regression.  While we don't need to backport normal fixes
>>> to security-only releases, we should certainly try to avoid
>>> regressions.
>>
>> I don't think we would have addressed non-security fallout (or other
>> than really severe regressions) from other security patches in the
>> past on security only branches. People caring about performance
>> should upgrade.
> 
> If a security patch, when backported to 4.6, broke some fairly
> critical bit of functionality (say,  openvswitch support), you would
> oppose a subsequent patch which would fix that regression?
> 
> That doesn't seem very reasonable to me.  Users shouldn't have to
> choose between being vulnerable to a security issue and losing
> functionality which was working at the last release.  Otherwise,
> what's the point of having "security supported" releases?

Note how I did say "or other than really severe regressions". I think
your "fairly critical bit of functionality" falls into exactly that area.

Jan



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