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A comment on Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline. Parent comment

Re:Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline by naasking on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @08:21AM (#18502427)
That's a non-issue because a microkernel system call interface is stable. Drivers will simply continue to work in perpetuity. That seems like a huge help to me.
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Re:Bringing the Android kernel back to the mainline by ori_b on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @11:41AM (#18503907)
Why would you assume that? The set of required messages for drivers will increase over time, adding power saving commands, new hooks for higher level Android bits, and so on.

"Your WiFi only supports Android Kernel API 3.9. You need 7.0 to run this version of Google play".

The Linux kernel already has a stable user space ABI. If your hypothesis was valid, you would be able to upgrade the Android userspace on an old kernel with no problem. But you can't -- and that's with just one well specified ABI with a standardized, portable subset to worry about.

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