From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: jwboyer@gmail.com In-Reply-To: <20160913120942.GA18307@kroah.com> References: <57C78BE9.30009@linaro.org> <20160902134711.movdpffcdcsx6kzv@thunk.org> <20160910120055.gr2cvad7efwci4f2@thunk.org> <20160912162714.GC27946@sirena.org.uk> <20160912171450.GB27349@kroah.com> <20160912234548.GL27946@sirena.org.uk> <20160913061931.GC11047@kroah.com> <20160913103814.GQ27946@sirena.org.uk> <20160913120942.GA18307@kroah.com> From: Josh Boyer Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 08:20:59 -0400 Message-ID: To: Greg KH Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Cc: Tsugikazu Shibata , "ltsi-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org" , "ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org" Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [LTSI-dev] [Stable kernel] feature backporting collaboration List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 8:09 AM, Greg KH wrote: > On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 11:38:14AM +0100, Mark Brown wrote: >> On Tue, Sep 13, 2016 at 08:19:31AM +0200, Greg KH wrote: >> > what the next kernel will be. I work with them to show that it doesn't >> > really matter _what_ kernel is picked, if their code is merged upstream, >> > or ready to be merged, the specific kernel number doesn't matter. >> >> In the cases I'm aware of it's more about knowing when the kernel will >> appear so people can commit to integration activities than the version >> number itself - I've never really heard "I need version X", it's always >> been "when will we know which version Greg has chosen?". > > Yes, I hear that a lot, so you need to follow up with, "why does it > matter what version Greg picks?", and then their response to me always > is, "so we know what kernel to start to rebase our huge patchsets to > earlier", which again, is the thing we want to keep them from doing! > > I got a few emails when I stopped 3.14.y this week along the lines of, > "oops, we were using that kernel, what are we supposed to do now!" Each > time I asked if 4.4 or 4.8 worked for them. And each time I got back a > response a day later along the lines of, "oh wow, yes, it does, we'll > use that." > > I have half-a-mind to just skip a LTS kernel for a whole year and see if > anyone even notices, I feel it is being used for all the wrong > reasons... What are the right reasons? I've always found the LTS kernels to be a weird thing. They don't serve the same purpose the normal stable kernels do for users (fixes after initial release, before the next release). They don't serve the same purpose as a vendor kernel (hardened, stable, tuned, supported). Developers tend to abuse them as you've descried. So I guess I've forgotten the original intention of the LTS kernels to begin with. Could you remind me (us)? josh