Re: Slow DOWN, please!!!

Linus Torvalds
2008-04-30T19:42:56Z

On Thu, 1 May 2008, David Newall wrote:
>
> You're taking this far too personally.

Umm. If you didn't want a personal opinion, why did you Cc me in the first
place then, and ask for my input?

I gave my input to you. I think your arguments are ludicrous, to the point
of being totally idiotic. You complain how I don't release kernels that
are stable, but without any suggestions on what the issue might be, apart
from apparently me merging too much and making too many releases.

But do you really expect me to stop merging, or hold up releases that fix
hundreds of issues, just because there are other issues pending? Do you
really think development can be stopped? Trust me, we've tried. Every
time, it just leads to worse problems when the floodgates are then opened.

And yes, there is a solution: don't develop so much. Don't allow thousands
of developers to be involved. Do a small core group, and make development
so hard or inconvenient that you only have a few tens of people who write
code, and vet them and force them to jump through hoops when adding new
features (or fixing old ones, for that matter).

And yes, that *does* result in a "stable" system. Never mind that it's
stable for all the wrong reasons, and generally doesn't actually work well
across a dynamic environment (whether the hardware base below or user
space above).

See? This is why I think your arguments are so silly and misguided.

But if you actually have real constructive ideas on things to actually
*do*, please do mention them. We've changed our models over time, several
times, exactly because we've searched for better ways to do thigns. But do
realize that

(a) we can't just stop, or even really slow down. We can onyl try to
regulate and to some degree direct the flood, not hold it up for any
particular issue.

(b) We do have process in place, and it may not be perfect, but I doubt
anything is, and what we do have actually has evolved over the years.

And that's not just my process (ie "two-week merge window, followed
by about 6-8 weeks of fixups"), but the whole process both before and
after it (Andrew and now linux-next in front of it, and stable kernel
tree and the vendors after it).

(c) the "big picture" discussion is separate from individual issues. If
you want your suspend-to-disk issue resolved, or a memory leak
solved, you don't solve those by trying to complain about other parts
of the system, that are totally separate.

The global flow of patches and releases is not something that we can
hold up for _any_ of your individual problems. I do end up delaying
releases for really core things, so individual problems do obviously
affect (for example) the release timing. But the solution to them is
not in complaining about slowing down development, it is about
actually trying to engage the developers of *that* feature in *that*
particular bug.

And finally, trust me, if you want to have people care about your
problems, the last thing you want to do is say "I might switch to BSD".
Because quite frankly, I really don't care. People who think that threats
like that work in any productive way can go screw themselves. I'll flame
idiots like that, and my likelihood of helping people because they think
they hold a gun to my head is almost zero.

Linus