Support for Raring 3.8 kernel past 3.9 release

[Luis Henriques]

On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 11:01:02AM -0600, Tim Gardner wrote:
> On 04/12/2013 08:22 AM, Brad Figg wrote:
> >
> >GregKH has already stated that he will not support 3.8 past
> >3.9 being released.
> >
> >Should we pick up upstream stable maintenance (in some form)
> >for the 9 months of support for Raring? We _will_ provide CVE
> >support for this release.
> >
> >I propose that we don't.
> >
> >Brad
> >
> 
> I guess I'm thinking maybe we should pick up 3.8 stable, at least
> for awhile. How long have we committed to 3.5.y ? Maybe we could
> curtail our efforts there and redirect them to 3.8.y. We are going
> to have a Raring LTS kernel in 12.04.3 so its clearly within our
> interest.
> 
> Luis - how much additional time do you think it would take to
> support a 3.8 stable ?

I believe that what will take most of the time with an extra kernel will
be the testing.  There are a few tasks that will take some time but
require to be done only once:

 * Setting up all the required infrastructure (basically, the git
   tree branches and the automated builds), and
 * Cerifying the scripts I'm currently using for the 3.5 kernel will
   work OK with the 3.8

These scripts should be generic, but since they haven't been used for
any other kernel version, some validation will be required.

Currently, I already go through all the stable kernels candidate
patches, so it would be a matter of queuing them into another kernel.
There are extra overheads, of course: whenever a stable patch fails to
apply I try to figure out what's wrong, check if its applicable, and
eventually backport it.  But this should be manageable, I believe.

Anyway, before we make any decision on this, we still need to discuss at
least for how long we want to support another kernel (if we decide to
do, obviously).  Until 12.04.3?  Or will that be the full 9 months
(roughly until 12.04.4)?

Cheers,
--
Luis