Re: RFD: Kernel release numbering

Thomas Gleixner
2005-03-03T20:38:39Z

On Thu, 2005-03-03 at 14:52 -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> I disagree it's unsolvable:
>
> 1) At some point in the -rc cycle, you put your foot down and say
> "nothing but bugfixes."

Release candidates are supposed to be bugfix only from -rc1. Everything
else can only be called the "ridiculous count".

> That's all the 2.4.x's -pre/-rc accomplishes. It encourages people to
> test, by telling them when their testing would be most useful.

Correct, but again 2.4 is a different beast as no active development is
taking place.

In a active development you should move the -rc step out of the
development line into a seperate release line after the -preX steps.

It has two advantages:

1. The release process is encapsulated and secure against non bugfix
merges. This can be "sold" to users for testing.

2. The development cycle is more continous. While -rc1 is led to release
2.6.X the preparations for 2.6.X+1-pre1 are moving on. This might
shorten the overall release cycles as well.

tglx