[OpenAFS] On desupporting Linux 2.4

[Chas Williams (CONTRACTOR)]

In message <alpine.GSO.1.10.1502251140560.3953@multics.mit.edu>,Benjamin K=
aduk writes:
>In particular, the threading library used by Linux 2.4, LinuxThreads, is

Not completely accurate -- there are some 2.6 kernel based distributions
with LinxuxThreads (although they hopefully provide NPTL as well).

>When discussion on http://gerrit.openafs.org/#change,6947 began in 2012,
>it was claimed that dropping support for Linux 2.4 was premature at that
>time.  It is now nearly three years later, and no progress has been made
>on that change in gerrit, because of the difficulty of dealing with
>LinuxThreads and Linux 2.4.

RHEL4 is the last RHEL distribution to use LinuxThreads by default (at
least to the best of my knowledge that is the case).  RHEL4 went out of
production in 2012 and extended support is available until 2017.

SLES9 was the last SuSE to have LinuxThreads and went out of general
support in 2011.  I can't find any information on extended support.

So in 2012 it was a bit premature to consider ending support given the
upgrade cycle for some organizations.  At this point you should have
moved on though.

>As such, I propose that OpenAFS drop support for Linux 2.4 (and thus
>LinuxThreads) starting with the forthcoming 1.8 release.  Because this is
>a substantial change, I invite comments from the community as to whether
>it is appropriate and acceptable to desupport Linux 2.4, and what the
>scope of the impact of such a change would be.

Since 1.6 will still be an alternative I don't see any issues.  I guess
the big question is how long will 1.6 get security/bug fixes with 1.8
released?