From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751448Ab1AFIbq (ORCPT ); Thu, 6 Jan 2011 03:31:46 -0500 Received: from borg.asidev.net ([95.141.38.199]:51827 "EHLO borg.asidev.net" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751145Ab1AFIbp (ORCPT ); Thu, 6 Jan 2011 03:31:45 -0500 X-Greylist: delayed 358 seconds by postgrey-1.27 at vger.kernel.org; Thu, 06 Jan 2011 03:31:45 EST Message-ID: <4D257DEE.40009@evidence.eu.com> Date: Thu, 06 Jan 2011 09:31:42 +0100 From: Claudio Scordino User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.12) Gecko/20101027 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.6 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Artem S. Tashkinov" CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Greg KH Subject: Re: On Linux numbering scheme References: <18536664.253751287691209904.JavaMail.root@mail-zbox20.bo3.lycos.com> <28654042.253821287691362834.JavaMail.root@mail-zbox20.bo3.lycos.com> In-Reply-To: <28654042.253821287691362834.JavaMail.root@mail-zbox20.bo3.lycos.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi, > As time passes by, the Linux numbering scheme makes even less sense. > Some time ago there was a discussion on LKML about a new numbering > scheme but it didn't come to any positive conclusion and then the > subject was forgotten entirely. Not meaning to raise a clamour here > (and I suppose I represent a large group of Linux users here). I'm > willing to suggest a numbering scheme which I hope will answer all > known complaints and criticism. This seems to be a periodically recurrent topic on the list. If I've correctly understood all points of view, there are currently two groups of developers: 1. Those who want to maintain the current numbering scheme, because they feel comfortable with it, and because they can easily understand the number of releases between one release and another. 2. Those who prefer having a scheme somehow related to the date, so they can easily understand when a certain kernel has been released (i.e. how "old" it is). Does really exist a numbering scheme that can satisfy both groups of people ? Probably not. My only idea would be to maintain the usual numbering scheme, and just replace the second number (6) with the year of release. For example: 2.6.36 would be 2.10.36 2.6.37 would be 2.11.37 2.6.38 would be 2.11.38 and so on... This way, you put some information about the year of release without loosing all the benefits of the current scheme. But this means having two independent incremental numbers, which maybe is a too insane scheme. Regards, Claudio