From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756005Ab0GLO5g (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:57:36 -0400 Received: from lennier.cc.vt.edu ([198.82.162.213]:37276 "EHLO lennier.cc.vt.edu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755985Ab0GLO5f (ORCPT ); Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:57:35 -0400 X-Mailer: exmh version 2.7.2 01/07/2005 with nmh-1.2 To: Alexey Dobriyan Cc: Marcin Letyns , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: stable? quality assurance? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:42:32 +0300." From: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu References: <201007110918.42120.Martin@lichtvoll.de> <20100711131640.GA3503@thunk.org> <4C3ABA35.7020507@davidnewall.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="==_Exmh_1278946653_4501P"; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Mon, 12 Jul 2010 10:57:33 -0400 Message-ID: <66102.1278946653@localhost> X-Mirapoint-Received-SPF: 128.173.34.98 localhost Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu 2 pass X-Mirapoint-IP-Reputation: reputation=neutral-1, source=Fixed, refid=n/a, actions=MAILHURDLE SPF TAG X-Junkmail-Status: score=10/50, host=dagger.cc.vt.edu X-Junkmail-SD-Raw: score=unknown, refid=str=0001.0A020206.4C3B2D5D.025F,ss=1,fgs=0, ip=0.0.0.0, so=2009-09-22 00:05:22, dmn=2009-09-10 00:05:08, mode=single engine X-Junkmail-IWF: false Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org --==_Exmh_1278946653_4501P Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Mon, 12 Jul 2010 15:42:32 +0300, Alexey Dobriyan said: > On Mon, Jul 12, 2010 at 3:35 PM, Marcin Letyns wrote: > > Last time I tried freebsd it wasn't stable. It had problems with my hard > > drive controler. > > This thread needs more anecdotal evidence. To be fair, the continual re-appearance of this thread is *always* anecdotal. It's always somebody who has trouble getting it to work on *their* hardware, or with *their* software, and insisting that stuff doesn't get shipped unless it works properly on everything. Apparently, having it work on 99.997% of the gear out there isn't good enough for them. Then there's the inevitable call for "no shipping with blocker bugs" - never with a good objective definition of what constitutes a "blocker" bug. Ted had it right - you insist on fixing *everything*, you end up with Debian Obsolete. It's the nature of the beast - you *will* detect regressions at something resembling an exponential-decay curve. The only question that remains is how close to zero it has to decay before the ship date - and there's no single answer for that which fits everybody. One point to note is that if you ship earlier, the decay rate increases because of wider deployment. As a result, it's quite probable that you get to some objective level of "stable" faster by releasing early and then releasing a half-dozen dot releases, instead of waiting for the 3 or 4 dozen people testing it before release to shake out all the bugs (which obviously won't happen due to things like access to hardware). --==_Exmh_1278946653_4501P Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Exmh version 2.5 07/13/2001 iD8DBQFMOy1dcC3lWbTT17ARAqf2AJ40G/9NHY+Q70d0auCTdnwdTpR7GwCfRPxD 4wSsIjtDcM0bRZ704Gm0ddE= =rX0L -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --==_Exmh_1278946653_4501P--