[Marco Colombo]
> > Do you know the real reason Linus doesn't do this? I don't think it's
> > the added burden of supporting two branches for a longer period of
> > time. The real reason (at least one of the reasons) is psychological:
> > to encourage developers to work on making 2.2.0pre and 2.2.x stable
> > before spending all their time and energy adding new hairy features to
>
> Good reason. The only thing i have to object to it is that there are
> so many developers now (and many of them organized as indipendent
> teams) that only a small number of them fit the 'Gee! There's a new
> kernel to play with!' model.
You may have a point. I don't know what the demographics of Linux
kernel developers looks like these days.
> And there are more companies commercially supporting Linux today than
> there were a couple of year ago (at 2.0 time). THEY won't stop
> supporting a certain feature only bacause there's a new kernel to
> play with, i think...
Shoot, companies supporting Linux can take care of themselves. They
can move from supporting 2.2.x to supporting 2.4.x whenever they
please. The invisible hand[1] will keep them honest and diligent.
[1] Adam Smith's metaphor for the free market.
> It's that 'making it somewhat more inconvenient to develop new stuff'
> that I'm pointing out! I agree it was better to do that at 2.0 times,
> but I'm wondering if that makes us pay today more that it gives!
Well, think in terms of whose ends it serves. In other words look from
Linus's perspective. He wants a stable kernel (don't we all?) and
always needs help squashing bugs before a release. *He* isn't the one
developing kewl new features at that time. From his point of view it
makes perfect sense to encourage people to work on the frozen branch.
I agree with Linus in wanting a stable kernel more than a featureful
kernel. People actually *writing* the new features may have a
different set of priorities....
Remember, the kernel is fully open source. If you *really* want to
jump the gun and get a new kernel release cycle going, you are
perfectly free to release your *own* series of kernels, incorporating
the latest and greatest from around the world. It's been done before.
Of course, you have to acquire enough credibility for people to take
your patch series seriously. (Andrea gets away with it, Alan gets away
with it, individual arch maintainers get away with it. You or I might
have more trouble.)
> Thank you for pointing out what exacly the problem is. It's all in
> the 'making it somewhat more inconvenient to develop new stuff'. I
> think we should change it, to allow easier serious development at any
> time.
As I said, it's a conscious decision on Linus's part. As such, your
arguments are unlikely to change it, since it's obviously something
he's thought about.
We seem to understand each other. I am more than willing to drop the
thread, if you are.
Peter
-
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/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Jan 23 2000 - 21:00:18 EST