Re: RFD: Kernel release numbering

Linus Torvalds
2005-03-04T19:15:27Z

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Greg KH wrote:
>
> Ah crap, I just called the first release of such a tree, 2.6.11.1.

I don't think any of us really _know_ where we are going, and we're all
just discussing our personal ideas of what should work.

As such, I think experimentation comes into it. Dammit, I want everybody
to know that I'm perfectly happy to change my mind and admit when I'm
wrong. I may not like it any more than the average person, but if the
2.6.x.y approach ends up working fine, why not?

Iow, let's be open to some experimentation, and see what actually works.

> Are you sure we would ever do that? We never have before...

Well, I think we've only ever done a single 2.6.x.y release before, and I
think it's good that you try to make more of them. I'm not at all unhappy
with your 2.6.11.1 - I just think that there might be more automation
involved in the long run.

But automation takes time to build up and learn, and in the meantime doing
it by hand and learning early is definitely the right thing to do. Maybe
you doing it by hand just makes it clear that I was wrong about the need
for some strict rules that are automatically enforced in the first place.

> And if you disagree, what _should_ we call it? "-sucker" isn't good, as
> it only describes the people creating the tree, not any of the users :)

Let's try with the 2.6.x.y numbering scheme, it's simple, and maybe it
ends up being sufficient. I just wanted to bring up the point that I don't
think the sucker tree _has_ to be seen as a 2.6.x.y tree at all.

Linus