Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932154AbVLCXC5 (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Dec 2005 18:02:57 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751302AbVLCXC5 (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Dec 2005 18:02:57 -0500 Received: from mail.gmx.net ([213.165.64.20]:60616 "HELO mail.gmx.net") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S1751294AbVLCXC5 (ORCPT ); Sat, 3 Dec 2005 18:02:57 -0500 X-Authenticated: #428038 Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2005 00:02:54 +0100 From: Matthias Andree To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Cc: Dave Jones , Lars Marowsky-Bree Subject: Re: RFC: Starting a stable kernel series off the 2.6 kernel Message-ID: <20051203230254.GI25722@merlin.emma.line.org> Mail-Followup-To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Dave Jones , Lars Marowsky-Bree References: <20051203135608.GJ31395@stusta.de> <20051203205911.GX18919@marowsky-bree.de> <20051203211329.GC25015@redhat.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20051203211329.GC25015@redhat.com> X-PGP-Key: http://home.pages.de/~mandree/keys/GPGKEY.asc User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 X-Y-GMX-Trusted: 0 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1313 Lines: 28 On Sat, 03 Dec 2005, Dave Jones wrote: > In many cases, submitters of changes know that things are going > to break. Maybe we need a policy that says changes requiring userspace updates > need to be clearly documented in the mails Linus gets (Especially if its > a git pull request), so that when the next point release gets released, > Linus can put a section in the announcement detailing what bits > of userspace are needed to be updated. This isn't acceptable in stable kernels. FreeBSD has a very tight policy, newer kernels off the same branch support older user space. The upgrade path is clear, reboot into new kernel, have it spit a few reminders that your userspace needs update (Linux also has this, for instance, with SG_IO and its predecessors) but still everything works. Requiring new userspace at a patchlevel kernel upgrade is nothing but impertinent, unless that updated userspace ships as part of the kernel. > It still isn't to solve the problem of regressions in drivers, but > that's a problem that's not easily solvable. -- Matthias Andree - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/