[gregkh]

Did anyone think to actually ask the developer who is maintaining the LTS kernel versions why he made that change (back in February?), i.e. me?

{sigh}

No, I guess that would take too much effort, and wouldn't result in such a click-bait headline "LTS kernels are no longer supported for 6 years because it turns out no one used them." doesn't have that same fun sound...

[dang]

Well, we can at least change the title to that above. I've done so now.

[ognarb]

It's an article from Bryan Lunduke. What can be expected other than controversial and click bait articles?

[kakwa_]

> LTS kernels are no longer supported for 6 years because it turns out no one used them.

Looking quickly at Debian, old old stable (10) uses 4.19, old stable (11) 5.10, and stable (12) 6.1. All these versions are LTS kernels.

I don't think Debian uses LTS kernel branches as is, instead cherry picking patches, but it seems they do leverage LTS branches, at least to ease the back-porting I presume.

I'm probably missing something, and looking through the Debian mailing lists, I've not seen any discussion about the end of long term LTS kernels, but it seemed they did rely on it to a degree.

Maybe it was more of a nice to have, but from the outside (I'm neither a kernel or Debian maintainer), it leaves me a bit confused.

[28304283409234]

The one does not discount the other. In other words: disregarding the lts misunderstanding it still appears true that the Linux foundation is abandoning Linux kernel development. At least financially. Worth a look I guess.

Also: thank you for all your contributions to Linux for all these years!

[gregkh]

The amount of resources and other stuff that the LF provides to the Linux kernel community has increased over the years, including last year. Just because new people are brought in with new projects (that the LF member companies want to host) does not mean that somehow less is being given to the kernel community at all. It is not a zero-sum game here at all, that's not how the LF works in any way.

Again, this would have been easy to verify if someone just asked us.

So to repeat, no "abandonment" is happening here at all, the opposite is happening, just like it has for the entirety of the LF's existence, support has grown every year.

[senectus1]

you cant keep up with the fire-hose of nonsense that is the internet. Don't try, its such a waste of your skills and appreciated efforts.

If it gets enough attention just put a simple refutation or clarification on the foundations front page and move on.

[brnt]

> it turns out no one used them

Can you explain what this means? E.g. Debian very much sticks to LTS kernel versions in their stable releases. Were they not working with upstream, you? If they'd be doing their own maintenance, there's no need for them to stick to LTS versions, but clearly they didn't tell you. Any idea what's going on there?

[GTP]

> LTS kernels are no longer supported for 6 years because it turns out no one used them

I assumed companies use a lot of LTS software for servers to avoid frequent upgrades that always carry some chance of breaking stuff. Could you please elaborate more or link me to some place where I can read more about this?

[akaij]

If for-profit companies need to use older kernels, they can hire engineers using the profits?

[GTP]

Yes, they can. But it's different from saying that no-one uses them.

[akaij]

I'm sure the nuance is not lost on the people that made the decision.

[GTP]

I'm just wondering if it is actually how you said, i.e. they don't want to provide free support to companies vs how he write, i.e. not enough users.

[squigz]

It was extremely frustrating to see several articles saying that make the rounds on HN...

[mdolan1]

Bryan Lunduke is the Russia Today or Newsmax of open source...

[basedrum]

Don't distro kernels use LTS? Debian stable never changes it's kernel through its life cycle, and there is also a LTS of Debian