Re: RFD: Kernel release numbering

David Lang
2005-03-04T23:43:24Z

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Rene Herman wrote:

> Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
>> I've long since decided that there's no point to making "-pre". What's the
>> difference between a "-pre" and a daily -bk snapshot? Really?
>
> The fact that not a script, but Linus Torvalds, decides that the tree is in a
> state he likes to share with others. You have been doing -pre's all this
> time, it's just that you are calling them -rc's.

remember that there are the nightly CVS dumps and patches being created as
well.

from my point of view it appears that when Linus releases -rc1 he is
hopeing that it's actually going to be final, but since nobody bothers to
test before that it has never actually been the case. As a result
additional changes need to be done and Linus chooses to fix it by moving
forward and doing additional fixes rather then by reverting patches. He
does allow some additional patches to move in as well for a little while,
but all of them are expected to be fixes.

David Lang

--
There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.
-- C.A.R. Hoare