Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 3 Mar 2005 21:30:05 -0800 | From | Andrew Morton <> | Subject | Re: RFD: Kernel release numbering |
| |
Jochen Striepe <jochen@tolot.escape.de> wrote: > > Hi, > > On 03 Mar 2005, Andrew Morton wrote: > > 2.6.x is making good progress but there have been a handful of prominent > > regressions which seem to be making people think that the whole process is > > bust. I don't believe that this has been proven yet. > > Sorry -- what you (with the vision of a kernel developer) are seeing > here surely is interesting, but it's not the point: > > The point is what the *users* think. Just in case it still hasn't been > made clear enough in this thread: If your user base gets the impression > the development process isn't reliable any longer, you won't get your > kernel tested as much as you want.
You cannot have it both ways. Either the kernel needs testers, or it is "stable". See how these are opposites?
We don't _need_ people to test stable kernels, because they're stable. (OK, we'll pick up on a few things, but we'd pick up on them if people were testing tip-of-tree, as well).
The 2.6.x.y thing is a service to people who want 2.6.x with kinks ironed out. It's not particularly interesting or useful from a development POV, apart from its potential to attract a few people who are presently stuck on 2.4 or 2.6.crufty.
> > So I hope the latest proposal really helps making releases contain fewer > surprises. >
It won't help that at all. None of these proposals will increase testing of tip-of-tree. In fact the 2.6.x proposal may decrease that level of that testing, although probably not much.
There is no complete answer to all of this, because there are competing needs. It's a question of balance.
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |