[cip-dev] Maintenance policies and early considerations I

[cip-dev] Maintenance policies and early considerations I

[Agustin Benito Bethencourt]

Hi,

during the Technical Committee Meeting, last Monday, Ben Hutchings 
brought to the attention of the participants several topics to consider. 
I would like to bring them here. This is the first one

++ When do CIP should pick up a kernel?

+++ Maintainability effort

New major versions of commercial Linux Distributions are released at 3-4 
year intervals, so that typically only 4 versions need to be supported 
at one time.  Given that CIP's support period is meant to be even 
longer, it won?t be sustainable to extend every 'long term' branch, but 
only takes on a new branch every 2-4 years.

+++ Backport effort

The longer the intervals between new CIP branches, the greater need 
there will be for CIP or individual members to backport new hardware 
support (which carries its own risks).

+++ Trade-off

This trade-off is perhaps the most difficult issue to decide.


Best Regards

-- 
Agustin Benito Bethencourt
Principal Consultant - FOSS at Codethink
agustin.benito at codethink.co.uk

[cip-dev] Maintenance policies and early considerations I

[Hidehiro Kawai]

Hi,

I'm sorry for the late response.

(2016/09/22 18:31), Agustin Benito Bethencourt wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> during the Technical Committee Meeting, last Monday, Ben Hutchings 
> brought to the attention of the participants several topics to consider. 
> I would like to bring them here. This is the first one
> 
> ++ When do CIP should pick up a kernel?
> 
> +++ Maintainability effort
> 
> New major versions of commercial Linux Distributions are released at 3-4 
> year intervals, so that typically only 4 versions need to be supported 
> at one time.  Given that CIP's support period is meant to be even 
> longer, it won?t be sustainable to extend every 'long term' branch, but 
> only takes on a new branch every 2-4 years.

Assuming we release new products in every 2 years, 2-3-year release
cycle would be feasible.

Maintaining multiple branches is hard work, but its effort would be
decreased after 5 years from the release.

Best regards,

Hidehiro Kawai
Hitachi, Ltd. Research & Development Group

> +++ Backport effort
> 
> The longer the intervals between new CIP branches, the greater need 
> there will be for CIP or individual members to backport new hardware 
> support (which carries its own risks).
> 
> +++ Trade-off
> 
> This trade-off is perhaps the most difficult issue to decide.
> 
> 
> Best Regards
>