Messages in this thread | | | From | teamwork@freemail ... | Subject | Re: Linux-2.1.125 ... pre-2.2 imminent | Date | Sat, 10 Oct 1998 05:13:31 GMT |
| |
The following messages were unearthed from /.
-----------------------
Title: Now that 2.2.x is on the horizon .... By Taco Cowboy on Friday October 09, @06:13PM
Can someone _please_ figure out a way to automating the patch-feature submit system to speed up the progress of Linux?
It took more than 2 years for Linux to get from 2.1.1 to 2.2.0, and the world can't wait that long for linux to get to 2.3.1 to 2.4.
NT 5.0 is coming out pretty soon (it is in beta 2 now), and whatever we do, we do have to understand that NT 5.0 is a threat to Linux.
The development cycle for Linux _has_ to be accelerated. There are several key targets for 2.3 and let us not waste too much time on the patch/feature submit/re-submit snafu cycles, and rather concentrate on development.
Linux has come too far for all of us. If it's being bogged down by artificial bottleneck, the bottleneck must be removed. We can't afford to take our own sweet time in the development cycle any longer. We are in competition.
I welcome all comment and suggestion on how to speed up the development cycle. You can comment it on the linux-kernel mailing list at linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu
Taco Cowboy
-----------------------
Title: We _are_ in a race, believe it or not. By Taco Cowboy on Friday October 09, @10:24PM
True, Linux is not a commercial product, so it has no artificial deadline. True, Linux has proven itself times and times again, against all odds.
But we must _never_ delude ourselves that Linux is _above 'em all_, and we can always take our own sweet time to incubate the next Linux hatching.
We _are_ in competition with Solaris, NT 5.0, BeOS and others, whether we like it or not. Linux is in a stage now that it is starting to get the attention from the commercial world (users), that we must _not_ give up this opportunity to prove ourselves to them that Linux _is_ a viable alternative.
What makes NT ticks today is the commercial world. Without the commercial enterprises sold into the NT-is-the-only-thing lie, MicroSoft won't have a firmhold on anything, for MS being the OS maker, also makes applix, and MS applix almost always have secret hooks that makes them run much smoother on their own OS.
Without the commercial world, Unices would have bitten the dust. You think the colleges and universities in the world can support the various flavors of Unices from so many vendors? Unlike Linux (and FreeBSD), which is community based, commercial Unices do cost money, and commercial world's big irons are the reasons Unices still alive today.
IOW, the commercial world is _the_ most important market segment which determine the life and death of any particular OS, and for Linux to continue to thrive (not only survive, but to _thrive_) Linux does need the support from the commercial world.
We have finally opened the window to the commercial world, and they are starting to look into Linux with much more enthusiasm than ever before, _but_ we have to understand that this window of opportunity will not last forever --- and according to my personal observation, the window of opportunity for Linux to the world at large stands for 2 to 4 years, and within this timeframe, we better prove to the world that Linux is indeed a _much_ superior product, and if we fail to do that, Linux will never have a second chance.
We do have to start figuring out a better system for automating the patch/feature submit cycle, and with that matter settle, I can safely say that the progress of Linux will be greatly improved.
It took more than two years for Linux to get from 2.1.1 to 2.2.0, and I think we can do better than that for 2.3 ---> 2.4 series.
If we can half the development cycle (as Linus Torvalds has once said), it would be superb, and if we can't, at least we have to set a time budget of not more than 18 months for a complete 2.3.1 to 2.4.0 dev cycle.
There are plenty of things to be done for Linux. Linux isn't yet scalable, and Linux needs some industry-strength audit, along with some nicer features such as fault-tolerance and self-healing capacities.
Not all would be achived under the 2.3 series of course, that's why I think it would be wise for us to have a maximum development cycle of 18 months for 2.3, so a further 2.5 (3.x?) cycle may begin and take up whatever features that are still lacking and make Linux a true clean and robust OS as it should be.
And we better do it better and faster than NT and other OS if we are to win the race.
Taco Cowboy
-----------------------
Respectfully, Pete teamwork@freemail.c3.hu
- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |