Stable API
Posted Oct 22, 2006 9:49 UTC (Sun) by
Duncan (guest, #6647)
In reply to:
Stable API by mrshiny
Parent article:
Quote of the week
> What I would like to see is a return, in part,
> to the approach used in the 2.2 and 2.4 kernels,
> where the kernel API was considered stable for
> the lifetime of the kernel.
What you want, it would seem, is the continuing stable 2.6.16.* series
kernels. The stable series kernels have been continuing only for a time,
but that one has a volunteer to continue it for much longer --
indefinitely at this point. It's now a continuing stable kernel with only
fixes (and a few new drivers but nothing interfering with the old stuff
but fixes, is how I understand it) backported.
I'm sorry I don't remember who it was that volunteered, partly because I
like the challenge of sometimes breaking change and run the -rcs and
sometimes daily snapshots so 2.6.16 is ancient history for me, but I do
remember reading the articles on it right here on LWN, so go look it up if
long-time-stable is what you are after.
Otherwise, the feeling is that many of the mission critical folks will
normally be running a distribution catering to that and their supported
kernels anyway, not anything as raw as the mainstream vanilla stuff. For
those that aren't, well, if you don't already have a tested backup server
at /least/ /ready/ to bring up when your "mission critical" one breaks,
and are relying on swapping in new hardware without testing it for a good
30-days first, well, you're obviously not treating it as so mission
critical after all, and if you aren't, why should the kernel devs?
Duncan
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