From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Andy Lutomirski Subject: Re: (Short?) merge window reminder Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 17:25:10 -0400 Message-ID: <4DDC2236.6010608@mit.edu> References: <20110523192056.GC23629@elte.hu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: In-Reply-To: Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Ingo Molnar , Linux Kernel Mailing List , linux-arch@vger.kernel.org, DRI , linux-fsdevel , linux-mm , Andrew Morton , Greg KH List-Id: linux-arch.vger.kernel.org On 05/23/2011 04:33 PM, Linus Torvalds wrote: > On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 12:20 PM, Ingo Molnar wrote: >> >> I really hope there's also a voice that tells you to wait until .42 before >> cutting 3.0.0! :-) > > So I'm toying with 3.0 (and in that case, it really would be "3.0", > not "3.0.0" - the stable team would get the third digit rather than > the fourth one. > > But no, it wouldn't be for 42. Despite THHGTTG, I think "40" is a > fairly nice round number. > > There's also the timing issue - since we no longer do version numbers > based on features, but based on time, just saying "we're about to > start the third decade" works as well as any other excuse. > I don't think year-based versions (like 2011.0 for the first 2011 release, or maybe 2011.5 for May 2011) are pretty, but I'll make an argument for them anyway: it makes it easier to figure out when hardware ought to be supported. So if I buy a 2014-model laptop and the coffee-making button doesn't work, and my favorite distro is running the 2013 kernel, then I know I shouldn't expect to it to work. (Graphics drivers are probably a more realistic example.) Also, when someone in my lab installs on a box that's running software I wrote that needs to support modern high-speed peripherals, then I can say "What? You seriously expect this stuff to work on Linux 2007? Let's install a slightly less stable distro from at least 2010." This sounds a lot less nerdy than "What? You seriously expect this stuff to work on Linux 2.6.27? Let's install a slightly less stable distro that uses at least 2.6.36." --Andy -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://www.linux-mm.org/ . Fight unfair telecom internet charges in Canada: sign http://stopthemeter.ca/ Don't email: email@kvack.org From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from DMZ-MAILSEC-SCANNER-3.MIT.EDU ([18.9.25.14]:53305 "EHLO dmz-mailsec-scanner-3.mit.edu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757385Ab1EXVaV (ORCPT ); Tue, 24 May 2011 17:30:21 -0400 Message-ID: <4DDC2236.6010608@mit.edu> Date: Tue, 24 May 2011 17:25:10 -0400 From: Andy Lutomirski MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: (Short?) merge window reminder References: <20110523192056.GC23629@elte.hu> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-arch-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: To: Linus Torvalds Cc: Ingo Molnar , Linux Kernel Mailing List , linux-arch@vger.kernel.org, DRI , linux-fsdevel , linux-mm , Andrew Morton , Greg KH Message-ID: <20110524212510.HlNWZXqX27_lh0qjyYKywb7D8lRlWKoAI2EohrHefnw@z> On 05/23/2011 04:33 PM, Linus Torvalds wrote: > On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 12:20 PM, Ingo Molnar wrote: >> >> I really hope there's also a voice that tells you to wait until .42 before >> cutting 3.0.0! :-) > > So I'm toying with 3.0 (and in that case, it really would be "3.0", > not "3.0.0" - the stable team would get the third digit rather than > the fourth one. > > But no, it wouldn't be for 42. Despite THHGTTG, I think "40" is a > fairly nice round number. > > There's also the timing issue - since we no longer do version numbers > based on features, but based on time, just saying "we're about to > start the third decade" works as well as any other excuse. > I don't think year-based versions (like 2011.0 for the first 2011 release, or maybe 2011.5 for May 2011) are pretty, but I'll make an argument for them anyway: it makes it easier to figure out when hardware ought to be supported. So if I buy a 2014-model laptop and the coffee-making button doesn't work, and my favorite distro is running the 2013 kernel, then I know I shouldn't expect to it to work. (Graphics drivers are probably a more realistic example.) Also, when someone in my lab installs on a box that's running software I wrote that needs to support modern high-speed peripherals, then I can say "What? You seriously expect this stuff to work on Linux 2007? Let's install a slightly less stable distro from at least 2010." This sounds a lot less nerdy than "What? You seriously expect this stuff to work on Linux 2.6.27? Let's install a slightly less stable distro that uses at least 2.6.36." --Andy