Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 17 Feb 2021 10:40:45 +0100 | From | Greg Kroah-Hartman <> | Subject | Re: 5.10 LTS Kernel: 2 or 6 years? |
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On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 07:51:18PM +0100, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: > On Tue, Jan 26, 2021 at 10:30:16AM -0800, Scott Branden wrote: > > Hi Greg, > > > > > > On 2021-01-25 11:29 p.m., Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: > > > On Mon, Jan 25, 2021 at 11:55:11AM -0800, Scott Branden wrote: > > >> Hi All, > > >> > > >> The 5.10 LTS kernel being officially LTS supported for 2 years presents a problem: > > >> why would anyone select a 5.10 kernel with 2 year LTS when 5.4 kernel has a 6 year LTS. > > > Because they want to use all of the latest stuff that 5.10 provides > > > them. Don't you want faster and more secure kernels for your devices? > > Yes, 5.10 is a more secure and less buggy kernel than 5.4. > > Great, use it, ship it to your customers and we are all happy. What do > you need me for any of this? :) > > > >> And AOSP has already declared the use > > >> of 5.10 kernel in their Android S and T releases. > > > Publically? Where? And is that really the name of the new Android > > > releases, I thought they switched to numbers now (hence the naming of > > > the current android-common kernel branches, marketing is fun...) > > https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel/android-common > > Feature and launch kernels provides kernels supported per version. > > Oh nice, didn't know that. > > But note, Android kernels do not reflect the lifespan of LTS kernels. > If that were the case, I would still be supporting 3.18 as they are > doing that at the moment for their devices and customers, and will be > doing so for I think another full year. > > So while Android is nice to see here, remember that is what Google is > promising to support for their users. You can do the same thing for > your users, what do you need me here for this? You can do the same > thing that Google is doing for 3.18 right now, pick the stable fixes > from upstream, backport them, test them, and push them out to their > users. > > While Google is a great help to me in the LTS effort, providing huge > amounts of resources to enable my life easier with this (i.e. funding > Linaro's testing efforts), their promise to their customers/users does > not depend on me keeping LTS kernels alive, if I stopped tomorrow their > contracts are still in place and they know how to do this work > themselves (as is proof with 3.18). > > So you can provide the same kind of guarantee to support any kernel > version for any amount of time to any customer you like, it shouldn't > require me to do that work for you, right? > > > >> Is there some way we could make the LTS support more clear. > > >> A 2 year declaration is not LTS any more. > > > Not true at all, a "normal" stable kernel is dropped after the next > > > release happens, making their lifespan about 4 months long. 2 years is > > > much longer than 4 months, so it still is a "long term supported" kernel > > > in contrast, correct? > > Perhaps a new name needs to be made for "LTS" for 6 years to distinguish it from 2 years. > > The timeframes are very different. > > At this point in time, anyone wanting a kernel longer than 2 years > should know how this all works. > > If not, please do some basic research, I have written whitepapers on > this and given numerous talks. The information is out there... > > > >> If 5.10 is "actually" going to be supported for 6 years it would be quite valuable to make such a declaration. > > >> https://www.kernel.org/category/releases.html > > > Why? What would that change? > > > > > > Ok, seriously, this happens every year, and every year we go through the > > > same thing, it's not like this is somehow new, right? > > No, but why do we need to keep playing the same game every year now. > > Because, 5.4 almost did not become "6 years" of support from me. That > was because in the beginning, no one said they were going to use it in > their devices and offer me help in testing and backporting. Only when I > knew for sure that we had people helping this out did I change the date > on kernel.org. > > So far the jury is still out for 5.10, are you willing to help with > this? If not, why are you willing to hope that others are going to do > your work for you? I am talking to some companies, but am not willing > to commit to anything in public just yet, because no one has committed > to me yet.
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...
If you want to point people at your company this link that explains it all in a single location instead of an email thread: http://www.kroah.com/log/blog/2021/02/03/helping-out-with-lts-kernel-releases/ that would be great.
thanks,
greg k-h
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