Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 23 Oct 2004 10:19:40 +1000 | From | Con Kolivas <> | Subject | Re: The naming wars continue... |
| |
Matt Mackall wrote: > On Fri, Oct 22, 2004 at 03:05:13PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > >>And the fact is, I can't see the point. I'll just call it all "-rcX", >>because I (very obviously) have no clue where the cut-over-point from >>"pre" to "rc" is, or (even more painfully obviously) where it will become >>the final next release. > > > This should be easy: the cut-over should be when you're tempted to > rename it 2.6.next. If you have no intention (or hope) of renaming > 2.6.x-rc1 to 2.6.x, it is not a "release candidate" by definition. > > What's the point? It serves as a signal that a) we're not accepting > more big changes b) we think it's ready for primetime and needs > serious QA c) when 2.6.next gets released, the _exact code_ has gone > through a test cycle and we can have some confidence that there won't > be any nasty 0-day bugs when we go to install 2.6.next on a production > machine.
I have this feeling Linus is laughing at us when he debates these arguments. Nonetheless I finally feel obliged to say a "release candidate" is a release candidate. It should only be called that if it is planned to be the real version, and the real version is _exactly_ the same bar the version number. If it isn't even planned to be released unmodified it's a -pre patch.
/me still hears Linus laughing. He's only been doing this for 13 years.
Cheers, Con [unhandled content-type:application/pgp-signature] | |