On Thu, Feb 17, 2022 at 09:55:50PM +0100, Pavel Machek wrote:
Hi!
I'm announcing the release of the 4.4.302 kernel.
This kernel branch is now END-OF-LIFE. It will not be getting any more updates from the kernel stable team, and will most likely quickly become insecure and out-of-date. Do not use it anymore unless you really know what you are doing.
Note, the CIP project at https://www.cip-project.org/ is considering to maintain the 4.4 branch in a limited capability going forward. If you really need to use this kernel version, please contact them.
Yes, please; feel free to contact us.
Greg, we'll likely keep maintaining "stable 4.4.X" separately from "stable + changes for cip hardware, aka 4.4.X-cipY". Would it be okay if we simply kept tagging those kernels as 4.4.303 / 4.4.304 / ...?
No, please do not. Just call them 4.4.302-cipY as there is no need to even attempt to keep 4.4 alive for non-cip platforms at all anymore. If you were to keep incrementing the number, that will cause confusion and people would think that it would be a general-purpose release like was previously done, when that is going to be impossible for you all to keep alive.
CIP project is committed to maintain 4.4.x kernel till January of 2027 [1]. We are maintaining -cip branch [2], that is stable kernel with about 1000 of patches to support our reference hardware [3] and -cip-rt branch, with is merge of -rt and -cip trees.
Hah, good luck!
If you for some reason need 4.4.x with bug and security fixes, and are running similar hardware to our reference hardware (x86-64 and armv7), -cip tree may be good base for that work. Testing of the -cip tree is welcome, as is joining the CIP project.
I agree, people should join the CIP project and work with you all if they really want to keep using 4.4
thanks,
greg k-h