Re: My thoughts on the "new development model"

Theodore Ts'o
2004-10-27T14:58:52Z

On Wed, Oct 27, 2004 at 09:48:01AM -0400, John Richard Moser wrote:
>
> I for one don't give a damn. Bugs and how fast this development model
> fix them aren't a concern to me; although I'd never slow down the bug
> fixing process. My concern is getting a real stable tree for various
> maintainers to base on, so that various patches for drivers, security
> enhancements, and other things aren't scattered across versions and
> impossible to patch together even when they're noninvasive to eachother.
>
> Have you stopped to consider that the features that are critical to me
> are also holding me back from upgrading to the newer kernels?
> Ironically, these are security features, and the newer kernels have
> newer security fixes aside from new schedulers and other toys I could
> really enjoy having around.

So instead of kvetching, why don't you

(a) Create your own stable series by snapshotting some 2.6.x tree
every six months, and then maintain a set of bug-fix only patches
against that 2.6.x tree? Then convince the security people to port to
that particular 2.6.x-jrm tree?

(b) Convince the security folks to try to get their patches into the
mm- tree, for eventual inclusion into 2.6.

(c) Some combination of the two.

Either would probably be more likely to fulfill your needs than just
whining about it.

- Ted