> > Feature freeses should only free features that affect more then one little
> > function.
> [snip]
> > Feature freeze means as few core changes as possible.
>
> All features are equal, but some features are more equal than others?
> Please. Linus's "freezes" have historically been rather lukewarm, and
> may actually behave as you describe...but what's the point of calling
> it a "feature freeze" instead of "core freeze" or something that fits
> reality?
>From you definition of feature freeze the stable kernels are not feature
forzen too. If we are in feature freeze we can't drop the bottom-half
conzept and replace it with somethink diffrent becouse that's the core
system. Everyone who uses Linux uses bottom-halfs! The interfaces for e.g.
filesystem drivers are very clean - so you can add a filesystem without
modifying the rest of the kernel - and if then this new filesystem
driver is not enabled it's like the support for it would never be included
in the Linux kernel sources.
Sepcialy as long this new featues are marked as "experimental" I don't see
any problem. If someone compiles experimental features into his kernel
it's like useing a development kernel - and if it does not work correctly:
well - that's why we mark this drivers as experimental.
We are in feature freeze - this means that we are going to make this
kernel stable and that we are not going to make any big changes or
redesigns of the kernel. We are not going to itroduce a new module
modell or something like that. The feature freeze is more a philosophy
than a policy: The main focus is now to make the kernel more stable and
to find the bugs we probably left in our code. But if there is a QNXfs
driver allready there, I see no reason to don't add it (as long as we mark
it as experimental).
so long MHO,
- clifford
PS: To call it "core freeze" wouldn't bee right becouse we have a feature
freeze for all non-experimental parts of the kernel. The ext2fs people
can't make a redesign too, becouse that's a driver used in most production
systems. But the ext2fs is not a part of the core - it's a driver.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Clifford Wolf
magnet - Internet at Work IRC: efnet / clifford
Director of System Development http://www.clifford.at/
e-mail: c.wolf@magnet.at email: god@clifford.at
-
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/faq.html