From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (smtp1.linux-foundation.org [172.17.192.35]) by mail.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 55E1D10EA for ; Tue, 11 Sep 2018 21:39:25 +0000 (UTC) Received: from perceval.ideasonboard.com (perceval.ideasonboard.com [213.167.242.64]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D32E3716 for ; Tue, 11 Sep 2018 21:39:24 +0000 (UTC) From: Laurent Pinchart To: ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2018 00:39:34 +0300 Message-ID: <2400444.QbA1LOmrIy@avalon> In-Reply-To: <20180911193308.GA4429@kroah.com> References: <20180911113725.5d91b945@jawa> <20180911193308.GA4429@kroah.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7Bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Cc: Greg KH , Alexander Sverdlin , Lukasz Majewski , Ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org, Jonas Jensen Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] Deprecation / Removal of old hardware support List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Hi Greg, On Tuesday, 11 September 2018 22:33:08 EEST Greg KH wrote: > On Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 11:37:25AM +0200, Lukasz Majewski wrote: > > In the kernel community we pose a lot of attention to security (for > > example the prompt reaction on meltdown/spectre), but in the same time > > we tend to forget about the "long lived" devices and force their > > maintainers to use 2.6.x kernels..... (or even 2.4.x). > > We care, but really, how much can we do here? > > I've been working a lot with the Adroid ecosystem to try to help fix > their bad habits of "grab a random kernel and ship it and never update > it" by providing longer lived kernels that they can constantly update > their devices to. > > But their lifetimes is much shorter compared to yours, and I have no > insight into what kernels are being used, what configurations you all > care about, and how long you need/want them updated. > > Working with really old kernels like you have, without hardware > available to test is a hard task. If your hardware is in a system like > kernelci, then you can be sure that any new kernel will work properly > with your system and then you might not want to have to stay with really > old kernels that no one can maintain :) > > There's a Linux Foundation project, "CIP" that wants to maintain kernels > for devices like what you are making for 20+ years. They are having the > problems of not knowing exactly what platforms they wish to support, but > their goal is good, hopefully they eventually nail something down and we > can work together. Perhaps you should contact them to try to help solve > this issue for everyone? I may be wrong, but I understand Lukasz's comment as the exact opposite: we forget about long-lived devices and drop their support while they're still in active use, forcing vendors to start using old and unsupported kernels. If a large number of ARMv4(T) devices are still being actively deployed and maintain, we should treat them as first-class citizens. -- Regards, Laurent Pinchart