Re: Some thoughts about stable kernel development

[Stefan Smietanowski <stesmi@stesmi.com>]

Hi Krysztof.

> As all of you know, the development cycle can be shortened by using
> two separate trees for a stable kernel line.
> 
> Say, we're now at 2.4.23-rc1 stage. This "rc" kernel would also be
> known as 2.4.24-pre1. The maintainer would apply "rc"-class fixes to
> both kernels, and other patches (which can't go to "rc" kernel) would
> be applied to 2.4.24-pre1 only.
> 
> After 2.4.23-rcX becomes final 2.4.23, the 2.4.24-preX would become
> 2.4.24-rc1 and would be a base for 2.4.25-pre1.

And then someone comes along and says that feature X isn't working in
some version. He then reports that "it worked in a.b.c but then someone
broke it for a.b.c+1 pre 1. Then you have to tell that person that
a.b.c+1 pre 1 isn't newer than a.b.c. Messy. Very messy.
The list gets too many mails that are answered by "RTFM" already.

// Stefan