Re: RFC: Starting a stable kernel series off the 2.6 kernel

From: Bill Davidsen
Date: Mon Dec 05 2005 - 18:09:26 EST


Arjan van de Ven wrote:
On Sun, 2005-12-04 at 15:57 +0100, M. wrote:


if distros would align on those 6months versions those less
experienced users would get 5 years support on those kernels.


no distro gives 5 years of support for a kernel done every 6 months;
they start such projects more like every 18 to 24 months (SuSE used to
do it a bit more frequently but it seems they also slowed this down).


example: redhat, suse and mandriva are releasing their new product
using the latest 6months (or whatever) kernel; they are not going to
patch it except for new filesystems or bugfixes because of the new dev


"except for" is a slipperly slope. And "except for bugfixes" would be
wrong... those would be the ones that need to be in the kernel.org
kernel. As well as new hardware support. At which point.. what is the
difference? Where do 'features' stop and where do 'only needed bugfixes'
begin?

Given the examples of 2.2 and 2.4 ongoing low level maintenence, I think that's a poor objection, a stable series (in the old sense) needs one maintainer to make the decisions on what goings in, and typically people will do the actualy work cooperating with the primary maintainer.

--
-bill davidsen (davidsen@xxxxxxx)
"The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the
last possible moment - but no longer" -me

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/