Re: RFD: Kernel release numbering

Jeff Garzik
2005-03-03T02:29:48Z

David S. Miller wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Mar 2005 19:29:35 -0500
> Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
>>If the time between big merges increases, as with this proposal, then
>>the distance between local dev trees and linux-2.6 increases.
>>
>>With that distance, breakages like the 64-bit resource struct stuff
>>become more painful.
>>
>>I like my own "ongoing dev tree, ongoing stable tree" proposal a lot
>>better. But then, I'm biased :)
>
>
> The problem is people don't test until 2.6.whatever-final goes out.
> Nothing will change that.
>
> And the day Linus releases we always get a pile of "missing MODULE_EXPORT()"
> type bug reports that are one liner fixes. Those fixes will not be seen by
> users until the next 2.6.x rev comes out and right now that takes months
> which is rediculious for such simple fixes.
>
> We're talking about a one week "calming" period to collect the brown paper
> bag fixes for a 2.6.${even} release, that's all.

If we want a calming period, we need to do development like 2.4.x is
done today. It's sane, understandable and it works.

2.6.x-pre: bugfixes and features
2.6.x-rc: bugfixes only

> All this "I have to hold onto my backlog longer, WAHHH!" arguments are bogus
> IMHO. We're using a week of quiescence to fix the tree for users so they
> are happy whilst we work on the 2.6.${odd} interesting stuff :-)

If you think it will be only a week, you're deluding yourself. It will
stretch out to a month or longer, and the backlog problems will be real.

A calming period is fine. But this even/odd mess is just silly.

Jeff