Questions about development-process

[David Matlack]

I have some questions after reading Documentation/development-process/.

1. According to 2.Process, after the merge window closes...

     Over the next six to ten weeks, only patches which fix problems should
     be submitted to the mainline.  On occasion a more significant change
     will be allowed, but such occasions are rare; developers who try to
     merge new features outside of the merge window tend to get an unfriendly
     reception.

So is "submitting to mainline" == "sending patches to LKML"? I'm basically
confused if the development process is talking about when to send patches or
just when Linus will merge patches into his tree. (...or both?)

2. How does the development process apply to the staging directory? Can I send
new features and bug fixes alike for drivers/staging/X at any time or should I
separate out patches as:
  - new features for drivers/staging/X sent only during merge window
  - bug fixes sent whenever

Thanks!
--David