linux-kernel - Re: currently active Linux kernel versions

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Message-ID: <20080213002905.GB29194@1wt.eu>
Date:	Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:29:05 +0100
From:	Willy Tarreau <w@....eu>
To:	Mike Snitzer <snitzer@...il.com>
Cc:	Ferenc Wagner <wferi@...f.hu>,
	Xavier Bestel <xavier.bestel@...e.fr>,
	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: currently active Linux kernel versions

On Tue, Feb 12, 2008 at 04:37:54PM -0500, Mike Snitzer wrote:
> On Feb 12, 2008 4:18 PM, Ferenc Wagner <wferi@...f.hu> wrote:
> > Xavier Bestel <xavier.bestel@...e.fr> writes:
> >
> > > On mar, 2008-02-12 at 21:27 +0100, Wagner Ferenc wrote:
> > >
> > >> which are the "currently active Linux kernel versions" at any point in
> > >> time?  The quote is taken from http://lkml.org/lkml/2008/2/11/29.
> > >> Or more precisely: which are the "stable" versions I can depend on for
> > >> a more or less critical server, those that have active security
> > >> support or receive at least critical bugfixes?  I know about the
> > >> 2.6.2[34].y stable git trees, but I wonder how long will those receive
> > >> attention (that is, security fixes).  Can I find a written policy
> > >> somewhere?
> > >
> > > The answer is at http://kernel.org/
> >
> > Not quite, at least I can't find 2.6.23.y there, even though that
> > branch seems to be maintained...
> 
> 2.6.16.x is still maintained (2.6.16.60 was recently released).
> 
> 2.6.22.x is still maintained but Greg KH is apparently going to be
> ending his duties on it after the next release or so.  There is some
> confusion as to whether Willy Tarreau will be taking on the 2.6.22.x
> tree once Greg is done, Willy?:
> http://lwn.net/Articles/268003/
> http://kerneltrap.org/Linux/Stable_2.6_Branches

Huh? I never said that! Maybe I did not explain myself well, but that
was not what I was saying. I was simply saying that the good news about
Greg keeping 2.6.22.y open was that I'd throw my 2.6.20.y away and rely
on his tree instead.

I'm not really sure there's a need for 2.6.22 for a longer time. I did
that for 2.6.20 because .21 was crappy, people did not want to jump to
the fresh new 2.6.22 and it was unfair to expect Greg&Chris to maintain
3 versions in parallel, it's already cool to have two of them.

2.6.23.y looks very good to me, so I don't see what particular reason
people would have not to switch right now. But if there is a very good
reason (not motivated by unfixed regressions) and *if* it does not take
me too many hours a week, I'm not against this idea since I'm still
using 2.6.22 on some machines right now. But don't expect too many
releases though.

> 2.6.23.x and 2.6.24.x are obviously quite active for stable@...nel.org

Regards,
Willy

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