Can we please have a major fork of Linux into a modern and legacy versions ?

Can we please have a major fork of Linux into a modern and legacy versions ?

[Aaron Gray]

I hear Linux is going to drop a lot of legacy devices including the
ones dropped already. I am wondering if we can please have a major
fork of Linux into a modern and legacy versions ?

With a consolidation and security updates to the older version.

Kind Regards,

Aaron
-- 
Aaron Gray

Independent Open Source Software Engineer, Computer Language
Researcher, Information Theorist, and amateur computer scientist.

Re: Can we please have a major fork of Linux into a modern and legacy versions ?

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Sat, Nov 25, 2023 at 08:30:01PM +0000, Aaron Gray wrote:
> I hear Linux is going to drop a lot of legacy devices including the
> ones dropped already. I am wondering if we can please have a major
> fork of Linux into a modern and legacy versions ?
> 
> With a consolidation and security updates to the older version.

If someone wants to take an LTS kernel and volunteer to maintain it,
including cherrypicking security updates, and making sure that fixes
in core subsystems don't cause some of these legacy drivers to break,
anyone can create such a fork.

These things don't come for free though, and if you can't find a set
of volunteers to do the work to maintain such a fork, maybe that's a
good hint as to why such a fork hasn't happened.  Of course, if you
are willing to provide all of that work yourself, that would be great!

Cheers,

						- Ted

Re: Can we please have a major fork of Linux into a modern and legacy versions ?

[Pavel Machek]

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Hi!

> > I hear Linux is going to drop a lot of legacy devices including the
> > ones dropped already. I am wondering if we can please have a major
> > fork of Linux into a modern and legacy versions ?
> > 
> > With a consolidation and security updates to the older version.
> 
> If someone wants to take an LTS kernel and volunteer to maintain it,
> including cherrypicking security updates, and making sure that fixes
> in core subsystems don't cause some of these legacy drivers to break,
> anyone can create such a fork.

CIP project is maintaining 4.4 and 4.19 kernels, and will do so for
... few more years. Our trees are here:
https://gitlab.com/cip-project/

Best regards,
								Pavel
-- 
People of Russia, stop Putin before his war on Ukraine escalates.

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