Kernel releases for security updates
From: Gregory Boyce
Date: Wed Jan 12 2005 - 15:02:39 EST
Folks,
Lately on this list I have been hearing a lot of discussion about putting
out point releases for security and bug fixes to the stable series of
kernels. There has even been a single release (2.6.8.1) that actually
followed through with this.
What has not been clear to me from the threads is how far back people are
planning on supporting with these point releases? A lot of people seem to
be very interested in being able to run a kernel for extended lengths of
time, but most of the discussion on point releases has been about getting
a 2.6.X.1 while 2.6.X+1 is still in it's pre stages. What about the
people running 2.6.X-1? Can they expect to get a point release for
security updates?
I've been thinking about this, and it seems to me that there is going to
have to be a choice between either supporting just the current stable
release, or supporting the last X releases. The first option is going to
leave a lot of people unhappy as major changes get put into releases, and
the other option is going to be painful to support.
Rather than actually putting out point releases for the previously
released kernels, why not just create a centralized repository for the
security patches? In a lot of cases security patches can be applied as is
to a number of different kernel revisions. For the ones that cannot,
variances of the patches could be posted along with it clearly marked as
to which patches apply to which kernels.
Thoughts?
--
Greg Boyce
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