Re: [Ksummit-discuss] "Maintainer summit" invitation discussion

[Jani Nikula <jani.nikula@intel.com>]

On Thu, 20 Apr 2017, Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 20, 2017 at 11:17:18AM +0300, Jani Nikula wrote:
>> On Wed, 19 Apr 2017, Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
>> > Yeah, I don't think we can do much about distros that intentionally
>> > want to stay behind and backport.
>> 
>> /me looks at https://www.kernel.org/
>> 
>> 1 stable, 8 longterm, and 1 eol'd longterm kernels. The oldest longterm
>> is based on a five years old release.
>
> That 5 year old kernel is due to Debian's looney release schedule, go
> take it up with them :)
>
>> I just think the multitude of longterm kernels are sending a message
>> that it's perfectly fine to stay behind. Don't get me wrong, I know why
>> they are there, but I still think in the past the focus on encouraging
>> to always use the latest stable kernel was stronger.
>
> And how do you suggest that we do that any more than we currently do?
> (i.e. I go around and talk to companies all the time about this issue,
> did a tour of Asia last month, and will be talking to some US-based
> companies next month.)
>
> As you say, you know why they are there, so why is that not a valid
> reason in itself?  :)

Well, I'm just saying it's a double edged sword. Accommodating the
longterms says it's okay to rely on them, but then you go around the
world telling people they shouldn't do that anyway. It's a tradeoff.

Or maybe you just like traveling? ;)

> And you will note (although everyone seems to ignore it), that we are
> now only adding 1 new LTS kernel a year, and have been for the past few
> years, in order to cut down on the proliferation we had 3-4 years back.

I think that's a step in the right direction. How about having a shorter
lifetime too, despite "longterm"? Of course that would conflict with
what the distros are doing, and this may not be a popular view, but I'm
wondering if it's overall a net positive to give an appearance of
kernel.org endorsing all these ancient kernels?


BR,
Jani.


-- 
Jani Nikula, Intel Open Source Technology Center