Challenges Around Long-Term Kernel Maintenance – Sasha Levin, Google
Maintaining longer-term stable kernels is hard: the more we diverge from upstream, the more the technical debt we end up carrying in our stable kernel tree. While this is sustainable for shorter periods, it becomes exponentially harder the older the kernel we’re trying to maintain gets. This talk will cover some of the factors that contribute to the difficulty of maintaining stable kernels, and will explain how those factors increase in difficulty and complexity as the stable kernel gets older. The talk will also offer suggestions to reduce the long-term burden, as well as cover best practices around patch backport and reduction of technical debt on these longer-term kernels.
