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Re: Debian should not modify the kernels!



On Sun, 21 Sep 2003 22:44, martin f krafft wrote:
> Plus: why do you make the backport default? Shouldn't users have the
> choice to apply the patch if they wish, rather than those that don't
> want it having to unpatch?

I think that we should include some improvements to the default kernel by 
default.  The question is not whether we should distribute modified kernels 
but how modified they should be.

Also there's the issue of whether we should try to have one kernel source tree 
that everything applies to.  I think that perhaps we should have options as 
to which tree things apply to.  So we can have kernel patches to apply 
against the kernel.org kernel, we can have patches to apply against Herbert's 
kernel (the "official" Debian kernel), and maybe we can include the Red Hat 
kernel in Debian and have patches against it too.

Then users can select which kernel tree they want to use based on the features 
and fixes in it as well as the availability of patches.  People who want 
grsec will use the kernel.org kernel, people who want LSM will now want the 
Debian kernel (because I have ported the LSM patches to it).  Ideally some of 
the kernel patches will come in two variants, for Debian and kernel.org 
kernels.  I could easily maintain LSM patches for both if we had a suitable 
infrastructure to manage it.

> I don't buy a book just to find that every third page is different.
> A note "we thought you might want the changed pages. if you don't,
> please remove them and put the loose ones in the package into their
> place" doesn't help that.

Bad analogy.  Consider the way that the Harry Potter books have been modified 
for the limited vocabulary of the American audience.

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