Re: RFD: Kernel release numbering

Rene Herman
2005-03-04T08:45:41Z

Linus Torvalds wrote:

> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
>
>>It still does not solve the problem of "untested" releases. Users will
>>still ignore the linus-tree-rcX kernels.
>
>
> .. and maybe that problem is unsolvable. People certainly argued
> vehemently that anything we do to try to make test releases (renaming etc)
> won't help.

No, we argued that _if_ you don't do real -rc's no amount of renaming
will trick people into believing they are (for long). Note how that's
what has happened now. Your -rc's are -pre's, certainly the first ones
for each kernel, and that's exactly how people treat them -- that is,
many avoid them.

Doing -rc1 to release and beyond from that per-release "sucker tree" as
you call it (I prefer "release tree") makes more sense. This gets you
real release management and the only thing left to do is appoint the
release manager.

> So what do you do if you find an unsolvable problem? You don't solve it:
> you make sure it's not a show-stopper.

It's not unsolveable. Doing real -pre's and -rc's (which means "doing
doing real -rc's" in addition to the current situation) would at least
to a degree solve it.

> Sneaky. That's my middle name.

Judging by the fact that apparently you know have to few testers "seeing
right through Linus" would seem to be everybody else's, though.

Rene.