CINXE.COM
LKML: Adrian Bunk: Re: RFC: Starting a stable kernel series off the 2.6 kernel
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>LKML: Adrian Bunk: Re: RFC: Starting a stable kernel series off the 2.6 kernel</title><link href="/css/message.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /><link href="/css/wrap.css" rel="alternate stylesheet" type="text/css" title="wrap" /><link href="/css/nowrap.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" title="nowrap" /><link href="/favicon.ico" rel="shortcut icon" /><script src="/js/simple-calendar.js" type="text/javascript"></script><script src="/js/styleswitcher.js" type="text/javascript"></script><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="lkml.org : last 100 messages" href="/rss.php" /><link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="lkml.org : last messages by Adrian Bunk" href="/groupie.php?aid=1112" /><!--Matomo--><script> var _paq = window._paq = window._paq || []; /* tracker methods like "setCustomDimension" should be called before "trackPageView" */ _paq.push(["setDoNotTrack", true]); _paq.push(["disableCookies"]); _paq.push(['trackPageView']); _paq.push(['enableLinkTracking']); (function() { var u="//m.lkml.org/"; _paq.push(['setTrackerUrl', u+'matomo.php']); _paq.push(['setSiteId', '1']); var d=document, g=d.createElement('script'), s=d.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; g.async=true; g.src=u+'matomo.js'; s.parentNode.insertBefore(g,s); })(); </script><!--End Matomo Code--></head><body onload="es.jasper.simpleCalendar.init();" itemscope="itemscope" itemtype="http://schema.org/BlogPosting"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td width="180" align="center"><a href="/"><img style="border:0;width:135px;height:32px" src="/images/toprowlk.gif" alt="lkml.org" /></a></td><td width="32">聽</td><td class="nb"><div><a class="nb" href="/lkml"> [lkml]</a> 聽 <a class="nb" href="/lkml/2005"> [2005]</a> 聽 <a class="nb" href="/lkml/2005/12"> [Dec]</a> 聽 <a class="nb" href="/lkml/2005/12/3"> [3]</a> 聽 <a class="nb" href="/lkml/last100"> [last100]</a> 聽 <a href="/rss.php"><img src="/images/rss-or.gif" border="0" alt="RSS Feed" /></a></div><div>Views: <a href="#" class="nowrap" onclick="setActiveStyleSheet('wrap');return false;">[wrap]</a><a href="#" class="wrap" onclick="setActiveStyleSheet('nowrap');return false;">[no wrap]</a> 聽 <a class="nb" href="/lkml/mheaders/2005/12/3/63" onclick="this.href='/lkml/headers'+'/2005/12/3/63';">[headers]</a>聽 <a href="/lkml/bounce/2005/12/3/63">[forward]</a>聽 </div></td><td width="32">聽</td></tr><tr><td valign="top"><div class="es-jasper-simpleCalendar" baseurl="/lkml/"></div><div class="threadlist">Messages in this thread</div><ul class="threadlist"><li class="root"><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/55">First message in thread</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/55">Adrian Bunk</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/57">Jesper Juhl</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/126">Greg KH</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/132">"M."</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/141">James Courtier-Dutton</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/136">Greg KH</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/140">"M."</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/344">Florian Weimer</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/164">Adrian Bunk</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/171">Greg KH</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/172">Chris Wright</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/4/7">Arjan van de Ven</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/220">Florian Weimer</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/207">Jesper Juhl</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/4/19">Matthias Andree</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/4/80">Jakob Oestergaard</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/4/124">Greg KH</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/90">Florian Weimer</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/6/235">Greg KH</a></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/59">Arjan van de Ven</a><ul><li class="origin"><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/65">Adrian Bunk</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/65">Arjan van de Ven</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/4/37">Denis Vlasenko</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/84">Michael Frank</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/80">Matthias Andree</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/81">Otavio Salvador</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/84">David Ranson</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/91">Arjan van de Ven</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/111">Jeff Garzik</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/127">Greg KH</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/157">Matthias Andree</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/4/71">Michael Frank</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/108">Rob Landley</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/10/95">Ryan Anderson</a></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/105">Ben Collins</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/120">Adrian Bunk</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/123">Lee Revell</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/131">"M."</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/165">Matthias Andree</a></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/268">Bill Davidsen</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/353">Jeff Garzik</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/6/72">Matthias Andree</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/9/129">Bill Davidsen</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/366">Horst von Brand</a></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/110">"Dr. David Alan Gilbert"</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/130">Lars Marowsky-Bree</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/137">Dave Jones</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/139">Lars Marowsky-Bree</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/144">Michael Buesch</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/159">Adrian Bunk</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/166">Matthias Andree</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/3/168">Dave Jones</a></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/305">Florian Weimer</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/6/114">Lars Marowsky-Bree</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/6/134">Florian Weimer</a></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/4/28">Indrek Kruusa</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/4/31">Arjan van de Ven</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/4/59">Indrek Kruusa</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/388">Rob Landley</a></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/275">Bill Davidsen</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/5/280">Adrian Bunk</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/6/74">Matthias Andree</a></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/6/118">Lars Marowsky-Bree</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/13/297">Bill Davidsen</a></li></ul></li></ul></li><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/12/99">Felix Oxley</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/12/130">Horst von Brand</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/12/161">Felix Oxley</a><ul><li><a href="/lkml/2005/12/13/180">Horst von Brand</a></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></li></ul></td><td width="32" rowspan="2" class="c" valign="top"><img src="/images/icornerl.gif" width="32" height="32" alt="/" /></td><td class="c" rowspan="2" valign="top" style="padding-top: 1em"><table><tr><td><table><tr><td class="lp">Date</td><td class="rp" itemprop="datePublished">Sat, 3 Dec 2005 16:23:39 +0100</td></tr><tr><td class="lp">From</td><td class="rp" itemprop="author">Adrian Bunk <></td></tr><tr><td class="lp">Subject</td><td class="rp" itemprop="name">Re: RFC: Starting a stable kernel series off the 2.6 kernel</td></tr></table></td><td></td></tr></table><pre itemprop="articleBody">On Sat, Dec 03, 2005 at 03:36:38PM +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:<br />> > ase for a stable series.<br />> > <br />> > After 2.6.16, there will be a 2.6.16.y series with the usual stable <br />> > rules.<br />> > <br />> > After the release of 2.6.17, this 2.6.16.y series will be continued with <br />> > more relaxed rules similar to the rules in kernel 2.4 since the release <br />> > of kernel 2.6.0 (e.g. driver updates will be allowed).<br />> > <br />> <br />> <br />> this is a contradiction. You can't eat a cake and have it; either you're<br />> really low churn (like existing -stable) or you start adding new<br />> features like hardware support. the problem with hardware support is<br />> that it's not just a tiny driver update. If involves midlayer updates as<br />> well usually, and especially if those midlayers diverge between your<br />> stable and mainline, the "backports" are getting increasingly unsafe and<br />> hard.<br /><br />In the beginning, backporting hardware support is relatively easy, and <br />therefore cherry-picking from mainline 2.6 should be relatively safe.<br /><br />Things will change as time passes by, but then there's the possibility <br />to open the next branch and bring the older branch into a security-fixes <br />only mode.<br /><br />> If the current model doesn't work as you claim it doesn't, then maybe<br />> the model needs finetuning. Right now the biggest pain is the userland<br />> ABI changes that need new packages; sometimes (often) for no real hard<br />> reason. Maybe we should just stop doing those bits, they're not in any<br />> fundamental way blocking general progress (sure there's some code bloat<br />> due to it, but I guess we'll just have to live with that).<br /><br />IOW, we should e.g. ensure that today's udev will still work flawlessly <br />with kernel 2.6.30 (sic)?<br /><br />This could work, but it should be officially announced that e.g. a <br />userspace running kernel 2.6.15 must work flawlessly with _any_ future <br />2.6 kernel.<br /><br />For how many years do you think we will be able to ensure that this will <br />stay true?<br /><br />cu<br />Adrian<br /><br />-- <br /><br /> "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out<br /> of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.<br /> "Only a promise," Lao Er said.<br /> Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed<br /><br />-<br />To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in<br />the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org<br />More majordomo info at <a href="http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html">http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html</a><br />Please read the FAQ at <a href="http://www.tux.org/lkml/">http://www.tux.org/lkml/</a><br /><br /></pre></td><td width="32" rowspan="2" class="c" valign="top"><img src="/images/icornerr.gif" width="32" height="32" alt="\" /></td></tr><tr><td align="right" valign="bottom"> 聽 </td></tr><tr><td align="right" valign="bottom">聽</td><td class="c" valign="bottom" style="padding-bottom: 0px"><img src="/images/bcornerl.gif" width="32" height="32" alt="\" /></td><td class="c">聽</td><td class="c" valign="bottom" style="padding-bottom: 0px"><img src="/images/bcornerr.gif" width="32" height="32" alt="/" /></td></tr><tr><td align="right" valign="top" colspan="2"> 聽 </td><td class="lm">Last update: 2005-12-03 16:26 聽聽 [from the cache]<br />漏2003-2020 <a href="http://blog.jasper.es/"><span itemprop="editor">Jasper Spaans</span></a>|hosted at <a href="https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=9a8e99d24cf9">Digital Ocean</a> and my Meterkast|<a href="http://blog.jasper.es/categories.html#lkml-ref">Read the blog</a></td><td>聽</td></tr></table><script language="javascript" src="/js/styleswitcher.js" type="text/javascript"></script></body></html>