From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on aws-us-west-2-korg-lkml-1.web.codeaurora.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-6.0 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_00,DKIMWL_WL_HIGH, DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID,DKIM_VALID_AU,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,SPF_HELO_NONE, SPF_PASS autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 Received: from mail.kernel.org (mail.kernel.org [198.145.29.99]) by smtp.lore.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 88672C433DB for ; Thu, 18 Feb 2021 18:53:31 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [23.128.96.18]) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 43DD264EBB for ; Thu, 18 Feb 2021 18:53:31 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S233417AbhBRSwt (ORCPT ); Thu, 18 Feb 2021 13:52:49 -0500 Received: from mail.kernel.org ([198.145.29.99]:60640 "EHLO mail.kernel.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S233305AbhBRQwM (ORCPT ); Thu, 18 Feb 2021 11:52:12 -0500 Received: by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 4BE246146D; Thu, 18 Feb 2021 16:51:06 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=kernel.org; s=k20201202; t=1613667066; bh=UiJoO9f05d/IEcVWcOSMmu4kK2DNYfzncgmF7M0/MI8=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:References:In-Reply-To:From; b=Qw8dHHGS6O4d2zSMZU/AvLTGm8l37ByEJ448BkoHYttzsoBfbBXYBga/46z+XHWmS qit7EBqisag5Nk0Oft7UsH+94QGQnoKCKoKu2N/BZ3SRYNhvCstV5ApszKhBMQ6c7x ltcX8wBfS6uhAO2HMhChF1VTZ9gBirHE7I0Ukm5NambydJoGaZjz/fukUdUOCtXXvu lnqVaKKMi/iEQIR8S9Jx4ZKcv4VAVYLKpPpf1PlosbpRPyODnMSyPujxSiDdn1cxZ3 XEXDtXIJD4duXcJ6P0vW5CFBZjeYFmR/7i0w0HMl7/CkjdN5grYIx42KovbMo4A+LH byN+uNFvHkGcQ== Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2021 11:51:04 -0500 From: Sasha Levin To: Scott Branden Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman , BCM Kernel Feedback , LKML , Linux ARM Subject: Re: 5.10 LTS Kernel: 2 or 6 years? Message-ID: <20210218165104.GC2013@sasha-vm> References: <8cf503db-ac4c-a546-13c0-aac6da5c073b@broadcom.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Feb 17, 2021 at 11:48:21AM -0800, Scott Branden wrote: >On 2021-02-17 1:40 a.m., Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: >> Following up on this as I did not hear back from you. Are you and/or >> your company willing to help out with the testing of 5.10 to ensure that >> it is a LTS kernel? So far I have not had any companies agree to help >> out with this effort, which is sad to see as it seems that companies >> want 6 years of stable kernels, yet do not seem to be able to at the >> least, do a test-build/run of those kernels, which is quite odd... >I personally cannot commit to supporting this kernel for 6 years >(and personally do not want to backport new features to a 6 year old kernel). >And customers are finicky and ask for one thing and then change their mind later. Why would we commit to maintining an upstream LTS for 6 years then? If no one ends up using it (and we don't want anyone using older LTS kernels) we're still stuck maintaining it. >We'll have to see what decisions are made at a company level for this as there >are added costs to run tests on LTS kernel branches. We already run extensive QA on This sounds very wrong: it's ok to get volunteers to commit to 6 years while the company that is asking for it won't do the same? Shouldn't Broadcom commit to the work involved here first? >whatever active development branches are in use and a subset on the mainline >branch as well. QA resources are finite and committing those for 6 years is >not something that makes sense if customers drop that kernel version. >Testing of the LTS kernel changes really moves out of our hands and into the >customer's testing after our major releases to them. Keep in mind that QA resources are generally more abundant than engineering resources that need to actually backport stuff to old kernels. -- Thanks, Sasha