Re: RFD: Kernel release numbering

From: David Greaves
Date: Thu Mar 03 2005 - 10:04:27 EST


Matt Mackall wrote:

On Wed, Mar 02, 2005 at 02:21:38PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote:


This is an idea that has been brewing for some time: Andrew has mentioned
it a couple of times, I've talked to some people about it, and today Davem
sent a suggestion along similar lines to me for 2.6.12.

Namely that we could adopt the even/odd numbering scheme that we used to do on a minor number basis, and instead of dropping it entirely like we did, we could have just moved it to the release number, as an indication of what was the intent of the release.



One last plea for the 2.4 scheme:

a) all the crazy stuff goes in 2.6.x-preN, which ends up being
equivalent to 2.6.<odd> and friends in your scheme
b) bugfixes only in 2.6.x-rcN, which ends up being equivalent to
2.6.<even>-* in your scheme.
c) 2.6.x is always 2.6.x-rc<last> with just a version number change[1]

This has some nice features:

- alternates as rapidly as you want between stable and development
- no brown paper bag bugs sneaking in between -rc<last> and 2.6.x - 2.6.* is suitable for all users, 2.6.*-rc* is suitable for almost
all users
- it's already in use for 2.4 and people are happy with it




I understand that :)
(and if 2.6.y+1-preX appeared before 2.6.y then that wouldn't be too confusing)
(neither would 2.6.y.1 as an 'oops' in the human sense)

--Joe User.

Who's scared to risk his personally valuable data on a 2.6.x-pre<anything> - but will install, lets see, hmm, -rc2 or above :)
(I suppose the more paranoid I get, the higher the watermark I set on -rcX)

(I'm lying since I'm running a -mm on my server but that's only because I helped track down an XFS/nfsd bug!)

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