Re: y2038 backport to v5.4

["gregkh@linuxfoundation.org" <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Mon, Aug 17, 2020 at 02:15:16PM +0000, Roosen Henri wrote:
> On Tue, 2020-06-09 at 16:18 +0200, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> > On Tue, Jun 9, 2020 at 2:36 PM Roosen Henri <
> > Henri.Roosen@ginzinger.com> wrote:
> > > Hi Arnd,
> > > 
> > > I hope you are well and could answer me a quick question.
> > > 
> > > I've read on the kernel mailing-list that initially there was an
> > > intention to backport the final y2038 patches to v5.4. We're
> > > currently targeting to use the v5.4 LTS kernel for a project which
> > > should be y2038 compliant.
> > > 
> > > I couldn't find all of the y2038-endgame patches in the current
> > > v5.4-stable branch. Are there any patches still required to be
> > > backported in order for v5.4 to be y2038 compliant, or can the
> > > remaining patches be ignored (because of only cleanup?)? Else, is
> > > there still an intention to get the v5.4 LTS kernel y2038
> > > compliant?
> > 
> > I don't think there are currently any plans to merge my y2038-endgame 
> > branch
> > into the official linux-5.4 lts kernel, but you should be able to
> > just pull from
> > 
> > https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/arnd/playground.git/log/?h=y2038-endgame
> > 
> > and get the same results. If you see any problems with that, please
> > report
> > that to me with Cc to the mailing list and perhaps gregkh, so I can
> > see if
> > I can resolve it by rebasing my patches, or if he would like to merge
> > the
> > patches.
> 
> Pulling the y2038-endgame branch does lead to some conflicts, which are
> currently still kinda staightforward to solve.
> 
> However I'd be very interested in getting this branch merged to v5.4,
> so we don't run into more difficult merge conflicts the coming years
> where the v5.4-LTS still gets stable updates (Dec, 2025) and possibly
> to get any related fixes from upstream.
> 
> @Greg: any chance to get the y2038-endgame merged into v5.4.y?

I have no idea what this really means, and what it entails, but odds
are, no :)

Why not just use a newer kernel?  Why are you stuck using a 5.4 kernel
for a device that has to live in 2038?  That feels very foolish to me...

thanks,

greg k-h