Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: stable? quality assurance? | From | Theodore Tso <> | Date | Tue, 13 Jul 2010 12:50:47 -0400 |
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On Jul 12, 2010, at 11:56 AM, David Newall wrote:
> Thus 2.6.34 is the latest gamma-test kernel. It's not stable and I doubt anybody honestly thinks otherwise.
Stable is relative. Some people are willing to consider Fedora "stable". Other people will only use a RHEL kernel, and there are those who are using RHEL 4 or even RHEL 3 because they are extremely risk-adverse.
So arguments about whether or not a specific kernel version deserves to be called "stable" is going to be a waste of time and electrons because it's all about expectations.
But the one huge thing that people are forgetting is that the fundamental premise behind open source is "scratch your own itch". That means that people who own a specific piece of hardware have to collectively be responsible for making sure that it works. It's not possible for me to assure that some eSATA PCMCIA card on a T23 laptop still works, because I don't own the hardware. So the only way we know whether or not there is a regression is there is *someone* who owns that hardware which is willing to try it out, hopefully during -rc3 or -rc4, and let us known if there is a problem, and hopefully help us debug the problem.
If you have people saying, "-rc3 isn't stable", I'll wait until "-rc5" to test things, then it will be that much later before we discover a potential problem with the T23 laptop, and before we can fix it. If people say, "2.6.34.0" isn't stable, I refuse to run a kernel until "2.6.34.4", then if they are the only person with the T23 eSata device, then we won't hear about the problem until 2.6.34.4, and it might not get fixed until 2.6.34.5 or 2.6.34.6!
What this means is yes that stable basically means, "stable for the core kernel developers". You can say that this isn't correct, and maybe even dishonest, but if we wait until 2.6.34.N before we call a release "stable", and this discourages users from testing 2.6.34.M for M<N, it just delays when bugs will be found and fixed.
This is why to me, arguing that 2.6.34.0 is not "stable" really isn't useful. If you really want to frequently update your kernel and use the latest and greatest, part of the price that you have to pay is to help us with the testing, bug reporting, and root cause determination.
If you don't like this, your other choice is to pay $$$ to the folks who provide support for Solaris and OS X, and accept the restrictions in hardware implied by Solaris and OS X. (Hint: neither supports a Thinkpad T23.) But to compare Linux, especially the non-distribution source code distribution from kernel.org with operating systems that have very different business models is to really and fundamentally understand how things work in the Linux world.
If you want that kind of stability, then you will need to use an older kernel. Or use a distribution kernel which has a support and testing and business model compatible with your desires. Fedora for example uses kernels which are six months out of date, because during those six months, the people who use the testing versions of Fedora are doing testing and helping with the bug fixing. Red Hat uses this free testing pool to improve the testing and stability of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, so if you are willing to live with a 2-3 year release cycle, RHEL will be more stable than Fedora. And if you need to make sure that bugs are fixed very quickly, and you can call and demand a developer's attention, you can pay $$$ for a support contract.
I will say once again. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Linux is a better deal than most, and you have multiple choices about how frequently you update, whether you let someone else decide whether or not a particular kernel release plus patches is "stable", or more accurately, "stable enough", and you can choose how much you are willing to pay, either in personal time and effort, or $$$ to some support organization.
But demanding that kernel.org become "more stable" when it is supported by purely volunteers is simply not reasonable.
-- Ted
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