Re: RELEASE BLOCKER: Linux doesn't follow x86/x86-64 ABI wrt direction flag

Andreas Jaeger
2008-03-07T08:00:33Z

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"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com> writes:

> Robert Dewar wrote:
>> H.J. Lu wrote:
>>
>>> So that is the bug in the Linux kernel. Since fixing kernel is much
>>> easier
>>> than providing a workaround in compilers, I think kernel should be fixed
>>> and no need for icc/gcc fix.
>>
>> Fixing a bug in the Linux kernel is not "much easier". You are taking
>> a purely engineering viewpoint, but life is not like that. There are
>> lots of copies of Linux kernels around and in use. The issue is not
>> fixing the kernel per se, it is propagating that change to all
>> Linux kernels in use -- THAT'S another matter entirely, and is
>> far far more difficult than making sure that a kernel fix is
>> qualified and widely proopagated.
>>
>
> Not really, it's just a matter of time. Typical distro cycles are on
> the order of 3 years.

But distros release fixes regularly for their kernels - and adding a fix
for this issue with their next security update is something that is
possible for distros (at least for openSUSE ;-),

Andreas
--
Andreas Jaeger, Director Platform / openSUSE, aj@suse.de
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg)
Maxfeldstr. 5, 90409 Nürnberg, Germany
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