Maintenance
While Linus Torvalds supervises code changes and releases to the latest kernel versions, he has delegated the maintenance of older versions to other programmers. Major releases as old as 2.0 (officially made obsolete with the kernel 2.2.0 release in January 1999) are maintained as needed, although at a very slow pace.
| Kernel series | Original release date | Current version | Maintainer | Support Model | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Old version, no longer supported: 2.0 | June 9, 1996 | 2.0.40 | David Weinehall | EOL (Officially made obsolete with the kernel 2.2.0 release) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 2.2 | January 26, 1999 | 2.2.26 | Marc-Christian Petersen (former maintainer Alan Cox) | EOL (Unofficially obsolete with the 2.2.27-rc2) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 2.4 | January 4, 2001 | 2.4.37.11 | Willy Tarreau (former maintainer Marcelo Tosatti) | EOL (Maintained from December 2008 to December 2011), last stable release of the 2.4 kernel series. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 2.6.16 | after 2003 | 2.6.16.62 | Adrian Bunk | EOL (1st long-term stable release from March 2006 to July 2009, replaced by 2.6.27.xx) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 2.6.27 | October 9, 2008 | 2.6.27.62 | Willy Tarreau (former maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman) | 2nd long-term stable release from October 2008 to March 2012 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 2.6.32 | December 3, 2009 | 2.6.32.60 | Willy Tarreau (former maintainer Greg Kroah-Hartman) | 3rd long-term stable release from December 2009 to March 2012 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 2.6.33 | February 24, 2010 | 2.6.33.20 | Greg Kroah-Hartman | EOL (4th long-term stable release from March 2011 to November 2011, Base for Real-Time-Tree, replaced by 3.0.xx) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Older version, yet still supported: 2.6.34 | May 16, 2010 | 2.6.34.13 | Paul Gortmaker | 5th long-term stable release from January 2011 to 201? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 2.6.35 | August 1, 2010 | 2.6.35.14 | Andi Kleen | 6th long-term stable release from December 2010 to 201? | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 2.6.38 | March 15, 2011 | 2.6.38.8 | EOL (Maintained from March 2011 to June 2011) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 2.6.39 | May 19, 2011 | 2.6.39.4 | Linus Torvalds | EOL (Maintained from May 2011 to August 2011), last stable release of the 2.6 kernel series. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Older version, yet still supported: 3.0 | July 22, 2011 | 3.0.57 | Greg Kroah-Hartman | 7th long-term stable release from Jul 2011 to 2013+, Base for Real-Time-Tree | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 3.1 | October 24, 2011 | 3.1.10 | EOL (Maintained from October 2011 to January 2012) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Older version, yet still supported: 3.2 | January 4, 2012 | 3.2.35 | Ben Hutchings | 8th long-term stable release from March 2012 to 2015, used in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, Debian 7 Wheezy and Slackware 14.0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 3.3 | March 18, 2012 | 3.3.8 | EOL (Maintained from March 2012 to June 2012) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Older version, yet still supported: 3.4 | May 20, 2012 | 3.4.24 | Greg Kroah-Hartman | 9th long-term stable release from 2012 to 2014+ | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 3.5 | July 21, 2012 | 3.5.7 | Greg Kroah-Hartman | EOL (Maintained by Kroah-Hartman until the release of 3.6.1), Unofficial extended support until March 2014 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Old version, no longer supported: 3.6 | September 30, 2012 | 3.6.11 | Greg Kroah-Hartman | EOL (Maintained from September 2012 to December 2012) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Current stable version: 3.7 | December 11, 2012 | 3.7.1 | Linus Torvalds | latest stable version | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Read more about this topic: USB Core, Development
Famous quotes containing the word maintenance:
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—Frank Pittman (20th century)
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—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)