Re: PostgreSQL Developer meeting minutes up

2009/6/7 Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>:
> So there are a lot of good reasons to work backwards in patching.
> I don't believe that these would be outweighed by some advantage
> in the mechanics of applying an unchanging patch to multiple
> branches (especially since AFAICT the mechanical advantage would
> be pretty darn minimal anyhow).

As another data point,  the stable branches of the linux kernel are
actually maintained this way.  There is a policy that any patch for the
stable branches must have already be included (in some form) in HEAD.
There is no merging going on.  They aren't even using git cherry-pick,  but
that's because all backpatching goes into a review list rather than happening
immediately.

The multiple branches and merging that is going on in the linux kernel
is all about development of new features, not fixing of bugs.