Kernel development process questions

[Joel A Fernandes]

Hi,

I went over the development process Documentation/ in the kernel tree,
and had the following question:

With respect to Linux Kernel development process, what does the word
"stage" mean? It is the process of getting patches into Greg's staging
tree, or is it linux-next? Or depends on the context?

Also, is there a standard way to track the status and location of a
patch (i.e. some information about which maintainer's tree it is
currently applied to, and which tree it is sent for applying to by
which maintainer etc). I guess one way is to read the mailing lists,
but is there a general preferred technique to get this information?

Regards,
Joel