Re: RFC: kernel packages cleanup

[Adrian Bunk <bunk@fs.tum.de>]

On Tue, Mar 23, 2004 at 03:01:44PM -0600, Stephen R Marenka wrote:
>...
> > Depending on the release plan and the ETA for a working 2.6 on Macs it 
> > might perhaps be possible to include an installer without support for 
> > Macs in Debian 3.1r0 and add support for them in later point releases?
> 
> I just spent two months adding 2.2 and m68k support to d-i. I'd be a bit 
> upset if we didn't release with any 2.2 kernels because it's 
> aesthetically pleasing.
>...

The point is not whether it's aesthetically pleasing, the point is 
whether there should be security updates for three major revisions of 
the kernel.

> > Tracking three kernel trees (2.2, 2.4 and 2.6) would mean to collect
> > information on security-related bugs, fix them in the sources, recompile
> > all kernel images, test them and write advisories for three different
> > trees, and this would effectively require 50% more work than supporting
> > only 2.4 and 2.6. Since the kernel requires relatively many security
> > fixes this is a serious amount of extra work.
> 
> Well I should think it would help quite a bit if we only have m68k and 
> sparc32 2.2 kernels, instead of all the archs.
> 
> I'd be happy to volunteer to do whatever extra work is necessary to keep
> 2.2 m68k kernels in sarge. Since, I'm running three buildds with 2.2
> kernels, it's inline with the work I'm already doing.

The extra work will be to include fixes for all security vulnerabilities
in the kernel that become known and that affect kernel 2.2 or are
specific to kernel 2.2 soon after they are discovered until one year
after the release of Debian 3.2. This will include backporting fixes
that will only be available for kernel 2.4 or 2.6 to kernel 2.2.

Roughly estimated on the current release speed, this means you will be 
personally responsible for security fixes in kernel 2.2 until 2008 or 
2009.

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed