Upstream first policy

Upstream first policy

Posted Jun 3, 2010 14:32 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1)
In reply to: Upstream first policy by faramir
Parent article: A suspend blockers post-mortem

If you are the developer of one appliance-type product, then maybe you can ignore the process. However, the life cycle of such products tends not to be very long; soon you'll be developing another one. There comes a point where you can't drag that 2.4.x kernel forward any further; it just won't work on the hardware you're using. So you're stuck with trying to make your stuff work on something newer. And that will be painful.

I've consulted for companies like this. Had they worked with upstream and made sure the stuff they needed got there, they would have found it waiting for them when the time came to move to a newer kernel. Instead, they set themselves up for a bunch of high-intensity, short-deadline pain. That can be lucrative for kernel consultants, but it's not really a good way to run a company.

To me, treating the kernel as a throwaway resource doesn't make sense even for the most myopic of embedded systems developers. Unless they plan to go out of business soon, they will want a maintainable kernel five or ten years down the road, and they will want it to meet their particular needs. And that doesn't just happen by chance.

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