linux-kernel - Re: Kernel version numbers after 4.9.255 and 4.4.255

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Date:   Sat, 6 Feb 2021 08:22:02 +0100
From:   Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To:     Tony Battersby <tonyb@...ernetics.com>
Cc:     Jiri Slaby <jirislaby@...nel.org>, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Jari Ruusu <jariruusu@...tonmail.com>,
        David Laight <David.Laight@...lab.com>,
        Christoph Biedl <linux-kernel.bfrz@...chmal.in-ulm.de>
Subject: Re: Kernel version numbers after 4.9.255 and 4.4.255

On Fri, Feb 05, 2021 at 12:31:05PM -0500, Tony Battersby wrote:
> On 2/4/21 6:00 AM, Jiri Slaby wrote:
> > Agreed. But currently, sublevel won't "wrap", it will "overflow" to 
> > patchlevel. And that might be a problem. So we might need to update the 
> > header generation using e.g. "sublevel & 0xff" (wrap around) or 
> > "sublevel > 255 : 255 : sublevel" (be monotonic and get stuck at 255).
> >
> > In both LINUX_VERSION_CODE generation and KERNEL_VERSION proper.
> 
> My preference would be to be monotonic and get stuck at 255 to avoid
> breaking out-of-tree modules.

I really do not care about out-of-tree modules sorry, as there's nothing
we can do about them.  And internal kernel apis are always changing,
even in stable/lts releases, so changing this type of thing for them
should not be a big deal as maintainers of this type of code always have
to do that.

thanks,

greg k-h