Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:42:07 -0700 (PDT) | From | Linus Torvalds <> | Subject | Re: Slow DOWN, please!!! |
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On Thu, 1 May 2008, David Newall wrote: > > You're taking this far too personally.
Umm. If you didn't want a personal opinion, why did you Cc me in the first place then, and ask for my input?
I gave my input to you. I think your arguments are ludicrous, to the point of being totally idiotic. You complain how I don't release kernels that are stable, but without any suggestions on what the issue might be, apart from apparently me merging too much and making too many releases.
But do you really expect me to stop merging, or hold up releases that fix hundreds of issues, just because there are other issues pending? Do you really think development can be stopped? Trust me, we've tried. Every time, it just leads to worse problems when the floodgates are then opened.
And yes, there is a solution: don't develop so much. Don't allow thousands of developers to be involved. Do a small core group, and make development so hard or inconvenient that you only have a few tens of people who write code, and vet them and force them to jump through hoops when adding new features (or fixing old ones, for that matter).
And yes, that *does* result in a "stable" system. Never mind that it's stable for all the wrong reasons, and generally doesn't actually work well across a dynamic environment (whether the hardware base below or user space above).
See? This is why I think your arguments are so silly and misguided.
But if you actually have real constructive ideas on things to actually *do*, please do mention them. We've changed our models over time, several times, exactly because we've searched for better ways to do thigns. But do realize that
(a) we can't just stop, or even really slow down. We can onyl try to regulate and to some degree direct the flood, not hold it up for any particular issue.
(b) We do have process in place, and it may not be perfect, but I doubt anything is, and what we do have actually has evolved over the years.
And that's not just my process (ie "two-week merge window, followed by about 6-8 weeks of fixups"), but the whole process both before and after it (Andrew and now linux-next in front of it, and stable kernel tree and the vendors after it).
(c) the "big picture" discussion is separate from individual issues. If you want your suspend-to-disk issue resolved, or a memory leak solved, you don't solve those by trying to complain about other parts of the system, that are totally separate.
The global flow of patches and releases is not something that we can hold up for _any_ of your individual problems. I do end up delaying releases for really core things, so individual problems do obviously affect (for example) the release timing. But the solution to them is not in complaining about slowing down development, it is about actually trying to engage the developers of *that* feature in *that* particular bug.
And finally, trust me, if you want to have people care about your problems, the last thing you want to do is say "I might switch to BSD". Because quite frankly, I really don't care. People who think that threats like that work in any productive way can go screw themselves. I'll flame idiots like that, and my likelihood of helping people because they think they hold a gun to my head is almost zero.
Linus
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