Re: Ptrace hole / Linux 2.2.25

Martin J. Bligh
2003-03-23T22:27:36Z

> I see a lot of new Red Hat work getting discussed, landing in the 2.5
> tree, and then getting backported as a value-add 2.4 feature for an RH
> kernel. Other stuff is "hack it into stability, but it's ugly and should
> not go to Marcelo."
>
> IMNSHO this perception is more a not-looking-hard-enough issue rather
> than reality.

Well ... or we had different meanings ;-) yes, lots of stuff is in 2.5
but I was meaning 2.4. If there's stuff that's in both RH and UL kernels,
and it's stable enough for them both to ship as their product, it sounds
mergeable to me.

> I have no idea about UnitedLinux kernel, but for RHAS I wager there is
> next to _nil_ patches you would actually want to submit to Marcelo, for
> three main reasons: it's a 2.5 backport, or, it's a 2.4.2X backport, or,
> its an ugly-hack-for-stability that should not be in a mainline kernel
> without cleaning anyway.

I don't see what's wrong with putting 2.5 backports into 2.4 once they're
stable. And I'd rather have an ugly-hack-for-stability than an unstable
kernel ... 2.5 is the place for cleanliness ... 2.4 is a dead end that
just needs to work.

> Can you actually quantify this divergance?
>
> From actually _looking_ at RHAS for submittable patches, it seems to me
> like mostly 2.5-backport patches in 2.4, or, bandaid-until-2.5 fixes that
> don't belong in mainline.

Right ... I think we're agreeing about what's the difference. Just
disagreeing about what should be in mainline 2.4. If most others think it
shouldn't go either, than I guess we need a separate tree for a 2.4 that
works, not a 2.4 that's pretty ...

M.