[fab] Alternative kernels?

[Jeremy Katz]

On Wed, 2006-09-20 at 14:48 -0400, Christopher Blizzard wrote:
> Jeremy Katz wrote:
> > On Wed, 2006-09-20 at 23:28 +0530, Rahul wrote:
> >> So since we decided to allow kernel modules in Fedora Extras now, what 
> >> about alternative kernels?
> >>
> >> The immediate need for this is a kernel with Ingo's RT patch set 
> >> (http://people.redhat.com/mingo/realtime-preempt/) that is used by 
> >> Planet CCRMA that we are trying to integrate into Fedora.
> >>
> >> We already discussed this before at 
> >> https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2006-May/msg00055.html. 
> >> A quick decision now. Yes/no?
> > 
> > I'd say no
>
> This is that classic problem that it's hard for us to manage > 1 of 
> anything in our trees.  I suspect (but correct me if I'm wrong) that 
> Jeremy is actually concerned about the lack of focus on the mainline 
> kernel, or wanting to get the RT patches upstream.

If we allow arbitrary kernels that are maintained in Extras, how do we
make sure that there's actually a consistent set of features provided?
And that's ignoring the questions of currency and handling of security
errata, which is already hard enough.

Additionally, more kernels ==> more pain for kernel module packagers.
Now they need to know about even _more_ variants and be able to build
against them.

These are the things that concern me a lot about more kernels.  Lack of
focus on the mainline kernel and wanting to focus on getting the patches
upstream is more of a secondary concern :)

Jeremy