Re: userspace breakage

Dave Jones
2005-12-29T23:03:14Z

On Thu, Dec 29, 2005 at 02:56:16PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:

> That really isn't acceptable. Breaking user space - even things that are
> "close" to the kernel like udev scripts and alsa-lib, really is NOT a good
> idea.
>
> If you cannot upgrade a kernel without ugrading some user package, that
> should be considered a real bug and a regression.

I'm glad you agree. I've decided to try something different once 2.6.16
is out. Every day, I'm going to push the -git snapshot of the day into
a testing branch for Fedora users. (Normally, only rawhide[1] users
get to test kernel-de-jour, and this always has the latest userspace, so
we don't notice problems until a kernel point release and the stable
distro gets an update).

It'll come with disclaimers up the whazoo about it possibly crashing,
eating your cat etc, but I bet some loonies will be mad enough to
try it, and report when it crashes and burns. This should at least
get us knowing about *when* we break things sooner.

During 2.6.16rc, expect more screaming.

Dave

[1] For non-Red Hat savvy, rawhide=='fedora development branch'