Will Ubuntu kernel follow stable upstram? [LWN.net]

Will Ubuntu kernel follow stable upstram?

Posted Mar 5, 2010 11:52 UTC (Fri) by sdalley (subscriber, #18550)
Parent article: SCALE 8x: Ubuntu kernel development process

>Once the kernel version has been frozen for a release, the management of
>that kernel is much more strictly controlled. The only patches that get
>applied are those that have a bug associated with them. Stable kernel
>patches are "cherry-picked" based on user or security problems. There is a
>full-time kernel bug triager that tries to determine if a bug reporter has
>included enough information to have any hope of finding the
>problemotherwise it gets dropped. One way to ensure a bug gets fixed,
>though, is to "show the upstream patch that fixes the problem"; if that
>happens, it will get pulled into the kernel, Graner said.

This implies that Ubuntu will NOT be following the upstream stable 2.6.32.n updates, but will instead be cherry-picking their own independent set based on their own bug reports. Fixes that have been incorporated for which Ubuntu have no bug reports will be dropped. Sounds rather a waste. Why not patch on top of upstream?

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heh

Posted Mar 11, 2010 18:44 UTC (Thu) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]

> Why not patch on top of upstream?
Because there should be another ancient african word meaning "we'll make a baby every six months and propose practicing that to others too".

Burning out scarce developers and totally missing user education is not going to get anyone anywhere reasonable. :(