OpenBMC v2.10/Hardknott status please

[Muggeridge, Matt]

Thanks Patrick.  Comments embedded.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patrick Williams <patrick at stwcx.xyz>
> Sent: Tuesday, 1 February 2022 12:42 AM
> To: Muggeridge, Matt <matt.muggeridge2 at hpe.com>
> Cc: openbmc at lists.ozlabs.org
> Subject: Re: OpenBMC v2.10/Hardknott status please
> 
> On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 04:50:40AM +0000, Muggeridge, Matt wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > OpenBMC v2.10 is desirable because it has the 5.10 kernel, with an LTS of
> Dec 2026. Though, I need some clarification, please.
> 
> The v2.10-rc1 tag is also based on Yocto Hardknott which is EOL in March 2022.
> To me, this is far more important than the kernel EOL for 5.15 being in October
> 2023.
>

I agree a longer LTS for the 5.15 kernel would be needed before it becomes attractive.

A couple of points to clarify...

- Historically, the kernel EOL is evidently reviewed in Feb/Mar timeframe. As has happened before, it is initially announced with a 2yr EOL and if there is sufficient support from other companies, then it is extended by another 4yrs, for a total of 6yrs. Given it's Feb now (at least it is here 😊), I guess we will know soon if 5.15 EOL will be extended out to 2027.

- The 5.15 kernel is in OpenBMC/master, which I guess will be branched as kirkstone sometime from June (based on historically OpenBMC releases branch ~3mo after Yocto release). At this point in time, the more interesting release is OpenBMC 2.10-rc/hardknott which has the Linux kernel 5.10 with an LTS till Dec 2026.  Therefore, I became interested in the 2.10 release, which you have helped clarify for me.

> > I see a few pieces of information that cause me to question if there will be an
> OpenBMC 2.10 release.
> 
> The v2.10-rc1 tag was made back in May and nobody seemed to care enough
> to push for a formal release to be done.  I don't expect this to be done now.
> 
> > In a message from Patrick Williams (appended) he states 2.9 was the last
> release and the plan is to target January 14th, 2022 for a 2.11 release. What
> about 2.10?
> >
> > Meanwhile, at the time of this message, there are no release
> notes<https://github.com/openbmc/docs/blob/master/release/release-
> notes.md> reported for 2.10.  Though, the Current Release
> Content<https://github.com/openbmc/openbmc/wiki/Current-Release-
> Content/b8934b1382409fdecf996fed6c56339e76717f2c> suggests 2.10 has
> been released.  If so, when was it released?
> >
> > Can someone clarify the status of v2.10?
> 
> There don't seem to be anyone vocally interested in any releases.  I mentioned
> hypothetically making a release for v2.11 and nobody responded.  I think there
> was a simple regression test ran on Witherspoon but beyond that we have no
> information on the stability of that branch.
> 
> As best I can tell, most companies that are active in the development either
> work off `master` or have their own internal release process.  I keep hearing
> small comments here and there on Discord like "I'm building a machine based
> on vx.y" but I have no idea why they chose "vx.y" and quite often they're only
> asking because they ran into a bug that has already been fixed on `master`.
> 
> If there really are people that are interested in us making formal releases, we
> need people to express a real interest and contribute (at a minimum) some
> testing to the release-candidate branches.
> 
> --
> Patrick Williams