Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 5 May 2011 17:17:02 +0200 | From | Willy Tarreau <> | Subject | Re: [stable] -longterm kernels (Was: Re: Patch Upstream: iwlwifi: fix skb usage after free) |
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Hi,
On Thu, May 05, 2011 at 04:58:55PM +0200, Stanislaw Gruszka wrote: > BTW, Greg, perhaps -logterm releasing policy should be revised somehow. > Currently we have .32, .33, .34, .35 -longterm, what is kind a much. If > I could suggest something, would be nice to have longterm chosen > versions predictable and constants i.e. one from every 3 kernel > releases, like .35, .38, .41 ... . That would make distributions, that > try to do release every half year very happy, because they will know > what kernel to choose, which will be widely supported and tested.
Longterm kernels are maintained on a voluntary basis, which explains there is no rule. We had 2.6.16, 2.6.27 and now 2.6.32 which were initially announced as longterm supported. When Greg announced dropping 2.6.27, I proposed to take it over because I have some uses for it and I know other people who rely on it. Most likely for very similar reasons Paul and Andi volunteered to maintain 2.6.34 and 2.6.35 alive.
I agree it would be much easier for everyone if all longterm kernels were announced early. Still there are a lot of users who can't easily upgrade for whatever reason and who are happy with someone keeping their kernel updated. I tend to consider that Greg's kernels are more "official" than other ones, and if some backporting must be done by patch authors, I think it should be for these kernels first. Also, .32 is not that far away from the 3 other longterm kernels, so when a developer writes a .32 backport, chances are that adaptations will not be too hard for the 3 other ones.
> Also > developers will have a bit less work with backporting fixes, as having > same bug in n and n-3 release is less probable, than having the same bug > in n and n-1.
While less probable, I'm still amazed by the number of fixes from -master that still apply to 2.6.27, and sometimes (but to a less extent) even to 2.4.37 ! The fact that fixes and regressions span that many kernel versions probably is one of the reasons there is demand for longterm kernels.
Just my 2 cents, Willy
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