[Devel] patch against 2.6.8.1 (stable)

[Kir Kolyshkin]

Enrico Weigelt wrote:
> * Kirill Korotaev <dev at sw.ru> wrote:
>   
>> we have also patches for 2.6.16 on the site and 
>>     
>
> Is this already stable ? I've just seen the testing patch.
>   
1. Stability is not binary thing -- I mean it can be more or less stable.

2. Our stable branch can be thought of as "super stable", and our devel
branch can be thought of as "it works".

3. Devel branch will not be declared stable for at least a few more
months -- just because the kernel it is based on is quite new. New stuff
contains bugs. Old stuff can have those bugs fixed. What we do in our
'stable' series is we backport all the security fixes from the newer
kernels, we also backport essential/relevant bug fixes and some driver
updates as well.

4. In fact, both stable and devel branches are based on the roughly same
code (the only difference is new functionality in devel, like veth
device and checkpointing). So, there are several bug sources/reasons:
 - mainstream kernel bugs;
 - bugs sneaked in while forward-porting stuff (caused by uncatched
mistakes done while porting);
 - bugs in or caused by new features.
While we can bash out last two categories by extensive testing and
bugfixing, bugs from the first category (i.e. mainstream bugs) are
harded to find. They just need some time to be found, and this is mostly
out of our hands.

5. Can you tell us what is your final intention, i.e. what do you need?
We can probably help...

Regards,
  Kir.