Re: Enough with the ad-hoc naming schemes, please

From: Geert Uytterhoeven
Date: Tue Oct 19 2004 - 04:09:34 EST


On Mon, 18 Oct 2004, Russell King wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 18, 2004 at 11:38:07AM -0700, cliff white wrote:
> > On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 13:08:51 -0500
> > Matt Mackall <mpm@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > > I can't help but notice you've broken all the tools that rely on a
> > > stable naming scheme TWICE in the span of LESS THAN ONE POINT RELEASE.
> > >
> > > In both cases, this could have been avoided by using Marcello's 2.4
> > > naming scheme. It's very simple: when you think something is "final",
> > > you call it a "release candidate" and tag it "-rcX". If it works out,
> > > you rename it _unmodified_ and everyone can trust that it hasn't
> > > broken again in the interval. If it's not "final" and you're accepting
> > > more than bugfixes, you call it a "pre-release" and tag it "-pre".
> > > Then developers and testers and automated tools all know what to
> > > expect.
> >
> > Speaking for OSDL's automated testing team, we second this motion.
>
> <aol>me too</aol> I've already made some representations to Linus
> in private, and now I'm actively queueing up patches which have been
> sitting around since the start of -rc1. I, for one, no longer believe
> in any naming scheme associated with mainline.

Ah, I'm not the only one! Apparently not all obvious fixes for things that got
obviously broken in 2.6.9-rc* were applied :-(

Not to mention e.g. the m68k signal handling got broken because of the removal
(without any warning in advance on linux-arch) of notify_parent(), which is BTW
still used by 5 archs, either in code or in comments (never trust comments?).

Gr{oetje,eeting}s,

Geert (sometimes frustrated maintainer,
sometimes typing emails without
much calming down first ;-)

--
Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
-- Linus Torvalds
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