From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262605AbUGLUXk (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Jul 2004 16:23:40 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262756AbUGLUXj (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Jul 2004 16:23:39 -0400 Received: from mproxy.gmail.com ([216.239.56.250]:59609 "HELO mproxy.gmail.com") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S262605AbUGLUXC (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Jul 2004 16:23:02 -0400 Message-ID: <4d8e3fd30407121322615a8a50@mail.gmail.com> Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2004 22:22:59 +0200 From: Paolo Ciarrocchi To: Adrian Bunk Subject: Re: Linux 2.6.8-rc1 Cc: Linus Torvalds , Kernel Mailing List In-Reply-To: <20040712163417.GT4701@fs.tum.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <4d8e3fd3040712023469039826@mail.gmail.com> <20040712154204.GS4701@fs.tum.de> <4d8e3fd304071208566280e89b@mail.gmail.com> <20040712163417.GT4701@fs.tum.de> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 18:34:17 +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 05:56:14PM +0200, Paolo Ciarrocchi wrote: > >... > > > OSDL does some tests for any -rc and many other people like me do other > > > testing. Besides this, most patches already got similar treatment in > > > -mm. This might not be a base for an ISO 9000 certificate, but it seems > > > to be sufficietely working for finding most problems before the acttual > > > release. > > > > OSDL does some test for any -rc but the results of these tests don't affect > > the release process. At least not in an official way. > > The Linux kernel development process isn't that much formalized. But if > someone finds a serious new problem in a -rc kernel a fix will usually > go into the next -rc. I agree. > Compared to some other open source projects like e.g. Debian the Linux > kernel has a pretty well-working release process (and the 2.6 > development avoided several mistakes of the 2.4 development). I agree, again. > > > It would be more important if Linus would release one last -rc that will > > > be released unchanged (except for EXTRAVERSION a few days later to catch > > > bugs in last minute changes. This might catch more problems like the JFS > > > compile problem in 2.6.7. > > > > Right, > > and in those days may be OSDL could run the testsuite we are discussing about. > > The way kernel releases currently work IMHO works well with the > exception that there should be a last -rc that should be released as > -final a few days later if no problems show up. > > What other actual problems do you currently observe? I really don't want to say that the process is now not working, I'm just saying that it could be improved. I totally agree with you when you say that there should be a last -rc that should be released as final if no problem show up. What I'd like to add is that in the few days between the last -rc and the final there is enough time automatically run a few tests like the ltp suite, the compile stats and a few regression test. If nothing strange show up, both from the comunity and the automatically tests, the new version is released. I don't want to reinvent the wheel, I see that all the tools are already here, most of them are maintained by OSDL, so *may be* we should formalized a bit more the release process. I don't see any disadvantage in doing this. ciao, Paolo -- paoloc.doesntexist.org