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SubjectRe: RAID is a matter of availability, not data security
Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote:
> In article <cistron.37C2FF6D.57FC6B92@heliosam.fr>,
> Hubert Tonneau <hubert.tonneau@heliosam.fr> wrote:
> >So what I wanted to express is that if you say the new code is not perfect,
> >so we don't include it, it has to be balanced with the fact that not
> >including the code means ignoring hardware failures.

> Including new code in development kernels is fine, but not in maintenance
> releases of a stable kernel series if it is not backward compatible enough.

> Linus wants 2.4 out by Christmas. So make sure the new RAID code gets
> into 2.3 if it isn't already.

When the 2.1.x kernels hit around x=44, they were so unreliable that people
started writing new drivers for 2.0.x instead of 2.1.x because they wanted
a somewhat stable kernel to base their work on.
Once the 2.1.x kernels hit x>100 or so they became so stable that many used
them a "stable" production kernels with more features than 2.0.x would offer.
Incidentally that's the time when 2.0.x kernels became rock solid.

No we seem to be stuck in the "2.3.x is useless" stage and people cry for new
features in 2.2.x again. Lots of people were ready to tinker around with 2.3,
when they suddenly broke FAT and many other file systems. Then we had all kinds
of horror messages of 2.3 kernels that suffered major instabilities here on
lk-ml. As a result only true hackers and some newbies who didn't know better
lay their hands on 2.3 kernels, but throrough real world testing only barely
happens (I haven't read one article here on lk-ml where someone used 2.3.x on a
big server. There was not one message so far about a DOS attack against 2.3.x
kernels, IIRC.)

Although it has been criticized quite often that 2.1.x lasted so long, it
allowed Linus first to change and break everything (x < 90), then there was a
long period of real world testing, eventually yielding a reasonably stable
and reasonably bug free kernel. If experimental file system code goes in 2.2
now, nobody will test the version for 2.3, and 2.4 will be bug ridden like hell.

Hoping for the best ...

Rudi

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