On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 11:30:56AM -0400, Mike Pagano wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 07:58:01AM -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > I bumped the vanilla-kernel sources yesterday, and deleted some
> > obsolete, and known-insecure versions at the same time (i.e. the 3.7 and
> > 3.8 ebuilds.)  They were added back because they were the last releases
> > marked "stable" for some arches.
> > 
> > In thinking about this, that's totally wrong.  Either all of these
> > ebuilds are marked stable, or none are.  And we should really NEVER have
> > known buggy ebuilds marked stable for the vanilla kernels, as that's
> > just dangerous on many different levels.
> > 
> > So, should I just mark these always stable, or never stable?  I don't
> > think we should mix the two, as the previous versions are always known
> > buggy, and have problems, and shouldn't be used.
> > 
> > thanks,
> > 
> > greg k-h
> > 
> 
> 
> Hi, Greg,
> 
> We hammered out a policy sometime in the past that if you add a new
> version for the reasons you did and remove the stable ones (that have
> security issues) you can do an auto stable.

Where was that hammered out?  On this list?

> I have not gone through the commit log to see what happened but here is
> an easy example.
> 
> You know the stable version 3.8.4 has a sec bug.
> You have a minor point release that fixes this.
> 
> You remove 3.8.4, add 3.8.5 and auto stable for any arch that had a
> stable keyword for 3.8.4.
> 
> This should be written down and if it's not that's probably on me as I
> am the only kernel person (i think) that was involved in the decision
> and is still around.

But every single stable kernel release I make fixes bugs that some might
consider "security" issues.  So that means that every single stable
release should be marked stable, right?

We should _never_ have an end-of-life kernel marked stable, that's just
asking for trouble.

> P.S. if 3.8.4 is bad, and we have to go to 3.9 we ask for a quick
> "emergency" stabilization effort by the arch teams.
> 
> Let me know if that is clear as mud.

It's clear, but I feel incorrect :)

As we can't do anything to these releases to fix problems or "make them
more stable", they should either always be unstable, or always be
stable, there is no difference.

thanks,

greg k-h

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