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SubjectRe: starting with 2.7
Date
On 4 Jan 2005, at 13:36, Rik van Riel wrote:

> On Tue, 4 Jan 2005, Felipe Alfaro Solana wrote:
>
>> I don't pretend that kernel interfaces stay written in stone, for
>> ages. What I would like is that, at least, those interfaces were
>> stable enough, let's say for a few months for a stable kernel series,
>> so I don't have to keep bothering my propietary VMWare vendor to fix
>> the problems for me, since the
>
> How much work are you willing to do to make this happen ? ;)

As much as needed :-)

> It would be easy enough for you to take 2.6.9 and add only
> security fixes and critical bugfixes to it for the next 6
> months - that would give your binary vendors a stable
> source base to work with...

I would... if it was easy enough to find some form of a security
patches pool. It's usually difficult to find a site where I can
download security patches for older versions of vanilla kernels. I have
the feeling that this security fixes go mainstream onto the latest
kernel versions, leaving users in hands of their distribution (either
to upgrade to a new distribution kernel, or waiting for the
distribution vendor to backport).

Thus, sometimes people are forced to upgrade to a new kernel version as
such security patches either don't exist for older kernel versions, are
difficult to find, or need backporting (and I'm not knowledgeable
enough to backport nearly half of them), and since the new kernel
version introduces new features -- which sometimes do break existing
propietary software -- users starts complaining.

However, it's true that distributions, like Red Hat or Fedora, try at
its best to keep the kernel as stable as possible. For example, FC3
seems to sport something like a 2.6.9 kernel, but sometimes those
kernels are so heavily patched that some closed-source software doesn't
work.

I know I can choose open software and hardware vendors compatible with
Linux, but sometimes I cannot. I like VMware, and I use it a lot. I'm
not willing to sacrifice it, and that's the reason I think 2.6 must
fork as soon as possible into 2.7.

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