5.10 LTS Kernel: 2 or 6 years?

[Hanjun Guo]

On 2021/2/20 17:53, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 20, 2021 at 03:02:54PM +0800, Hanjun Guo wrote:
>> On 2021/2/19 17:08, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
>>> On Fri, Feb 19, 2021 at 04:54:24PM +0800, Hanjun Guo wrote:
>>>> Hi Greg,
>>>>
>>>> On 2021/1/26 15:29, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>>>>
>>>>> I want to see companies _using_ the kernel, and most importantly,
>>>>> _updating_ their devices with it, to know if it is worth to keep around
>>>>> for longer than 2 years.  I also, hopefully, want to see how those
>>>>> companies will help me out in the testing and maintenance of that kernel
>>>>> version in order to make supporting it for 6 years actually possible.
>>>>>
>>>>> So, are you planning on using 5.10?  Will you will be willing to help
>>>>> out in testing the -rc releases I make to let me know if there are any
>>>>> problems, and to help in pointing out and backporting any specific
>>>>> patches that your platforms need for that kernel release?
>>>>
>>>> We(Huawei) are willing to commit resources to help out in testing the
>>>> stable -rc releases, and to help to backport patches for stable kernels.
>>>
>>> Wonderful!
>>>
>>>> 5.10 stable kernel will be used for openEuler [1] kernel and also inside
>>>> Huawei. From customer's feedback, it's very important to see the stable
>>>> kernel we used to be maintained for 6 years in the community, and we
>>>> will use 5.10 kernel for at least 6 years, so we are willing to help
>>>> you and help ourselves :)
>>>>
>>>> In specific, we will start from the testing work, using HULK robot
>>>> (reports lots of bugs to mainline kernel) testing framework to test
>>>> compile, reboot, functional testing, and will extend to basic
>>>> performance regression testing in the future.
>>>
>>> Great!  Do you all need an email notification when the -rc releases come
>>> out for the stable trees, or can you trigger off of the -rc stable git
>>> tree?  Different CI systems work in different ways :)
>>
>> We can trigger the test when you updated the -rc stable git tree,
>> by monitoring new commits for the stable branches. So if you push
>> all the commits at once for -rc stable branches, then our CI system
>> can work well.
> 
> I do push to the -rc branches, but those branches are rebased, and I do
> "intermediate" pushes as well.  Meaning I push to have CI systems run on
> the existing patch queue at times that are not only the "main" -rc
> release periods.
> 
> Watch the branches for a few weeks to get an idea of how they work if
> you are curious.

Will run our CI system based on your -rc branch to see if anything
doesn't work, then update our system as needed.

Thanks
Hanjun