Re: Development tree, PLEASE?

From: Joe George
Date: Fri Jan 20 2006 - 12:31:36 EST


Randy.Dunlap wrote:
On Fri, 20 Jan 2006, Joe George wrote:

Michael Loftis wrote:

--On January 20, 2006 4:29:44 PM +0000 James Courtier-Dutton
<James@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It is unclear what you are really ranting about here. The "stable" kernel
is stable or at least as stable as it is going to be. It is left to
distros to make it even more stable. The interface to user land has not
changed.
If all you are ranting about is the move from devfs to udevd, then all
the user land tools dealing with them have been updated already.
That's the nail on the head exactly. Why is this being done in an even
numbered kernel? This represents an API change that has knock on well
outside of the kernel, and should be done in development releases. Why
is it LK is the only major project (that I know of) that does this?
This is akin to apache changing the format of httpd.conf and saying in
say 1.3.38 and saying 'well we made the userland tools too.'

What is the real specific problem you are having?
Well there's a whole grab bag of them that I'll be getting to over the
next few months, but the most immediate is the fact that I've gotten new
hardware from a venduh that requires me to build a new Debian installer
and new debian kernels. I also have custom packages that depend on
devfs being there and now it's not.

Yes I realise this change isn't out of the blue or anything, but it's in
a 'stable' kernel. Why bother calling 2.6 stable? We may as well have
stayed at 2.5 if this sort of thing is going to continue to be pulled.

I don't think that kernel developers are calling 2.6 a stable kernel
series. There was an evolution into another development model without
a corresponding change in the kernel numbering. I think the main
reason the numbering wasn't changed was that it would break thousands
of scripts people are using all over the world.

What would be nice is to go, for example, from 2.6.17 to 3.1, 3.2,
3.3, ... And have what is currently called the stable series start at
3.1.1. This would make it clear that the 2.4/2.5 way of doing business
is over. Someone would have to decide whether it is worth it to break
all the scripts, however.

The problems AFAICT are:

1. We did (for 2.5/2.4) or would (for 3.3/3.2) spend tons of time
in backporting new features or drivers from the development tree
to the stable tree. The current model saves that duplication
(or even worse if multiple distros do that same work).

2. If we did have a separate development tree, we would need
to clone Andrew. 8:) IMO there aren't a lot of choices for qualified
tree maintainers, although I'm sure we could find someone if we
had to.

Anyway, to summarize, it's about manpower and efficient use of it.


I agree with all that and I would not want to change the way things
work at all. I just wish that the number could be changed so the
rest of the world would realize it changed and wouldn't keep saying
2.6 is a stable series.

Joe

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