Re: starting with 2.7

From: Felipe Alfaro Solana
Date: Tue Jan 04 2005 - 18:26:04 EST


On 4 Jan 2005, at 21:58, Horst von Brand wrote:

Felipe Alfaro Solana <lkml@xxxxxxx> said:
On 4 Jan 2005, at 14:27, Horst von Brand wrote:
Felipe Alfaro Solana <lkml@xxxxxxx> said:

[...]

I think new developments will force a 2.7 branch: when 2.6 feature set
stabilizes, people will keep more time testing a stable, relatively
static kernel base, finding bugs, instead of trying to keep up with
changes.

And when 2.7 opens, very few developers will tend 2.6; and as 2.7
diverges from it, fewer and fewer fixes will find their way back. And
so you finally get a rock-stable (== unchanging) 2.6, but hopelessly
out of date and thus unfixable (if nothing else because there are no
people around who remember how it worked).

I can see no easy solution for this... If Linus decides to fork off
2.7, development efforts will go into 2.7 and fixes should get
backported to 2.6. If Linus decides to stay with 2.6, new development
will have to be "conservative" enough not to break things that were
working.

Exactly.

I tend to prefer forking off 2.7: more agressive features can be
implemented and tested without bothering disrupting the stable 2.6
branch.

Have any particular features in mind? If you have some, you can fork off
your own BK repository and play there (wait... that is how (currently)
out-of-tree drivers are developed!). Or you could start an unofficial
experimental fork. If none of the above, I guess you'd just have to wait
until Our Fearless Leader decides it is time for 2.7.

Just forcing a 2.7 "because that'll stabilize 2.6" is nonsense. Because
then 2.6 won't stabilize any faster (probably slower).

Stabilizing, for me at least, means fixing bugs, not adding new features (unless those new features are totally necessary). Thus, I don't see how freezing the 2.6 codebase, waiting some time for bugs to get fixed and things to settle down, then forking off 2.7 could be a non-sense.

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