How speedy are patches to be downported to 11?

[Aleksey Shipilev]

On 2/17/21 8:43 AM, Thomas Stüfe wrote:
> Related to that, how are possible compatibility issues to be handled? Eg. a
> patch fixing the output of a command may be correct but may still throw off
> parsers.

Judgement call. We generally try to avoid introducing non-bug differences in update releases. But 
that is not a firm rule, AFAIU.

> I suspect the answer will be "its up to you", and depends
> on patch complexity and bug severity. But I still am curious how you handle
> this in practice.

My personal guideline is like this:
  - obvious build fixes are proposed right away (because they unbreak stuff);
  - testbug fixes are proposed right away (because they do not affect product quality);
  - simple fixes are proposed after a few nightly cycles (the follow-up bugs are usually filed 
within days from the initial integration into master);
  - complex fixes are proposed after at least 10 days (same reason, but give more time to catch bugs)
  - very complex fixes are proposed after about a month of stewing, and then only in the initial 
months of the update release (and they generally try to match the Oracle's version)

jdk-backports-monitor, for example, has the automatic cooldown set for 10 days:
   https://builds.shipilev.net/backports-monitor/label-actionable-redhat-interest.txt

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JDK-8260934: java/lang/StringBuilder/HugeCapacity.java fails without Compact Strings

   Original Bug:
       URL: https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8260934
       Reporter: Aleksey Shipilev
       Assignee: Aleksey Shipilev
       Priority: P4
       Components: core-libs/java.lang

   Original Fix:
          17: JDK-8260934, https://git.openjdk.java.net/jdk/commit/ad54d8dd, shade, 7 day(s) ago

   Backports and Forwardports:
          16: WAITING for patch to bake a little: 3 days more
          11: WAITING for patch to bake a little: 3 days more
           8: Not affected

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-- 
Thanks,
-Aleksey