Re: RFD: Kernel release numbering

From: Jeff Garzik
Date: Wed Mar 02 2005 - 22:49:17 EST


Linus Torvalds wrote:

On Wed, 2 Mar 2005, Jeff Garzik wrote:

If we want a calming period, we need to do development like 2.4.x is done today. It's sane, understandable and it works.


No. It's insane, and the only reason it works is that 2.4.x is a totally
different animal. Namely it doesn't have the kind of active development AT
ALL any more. It _only_ has the "even" number kind of things, and quite frankly, even those are a lot less than 2.6.x has.


2.6.x-pre: bugfixes and features
2.6.x-rc: bugfixes only


And the reason it does _not_ work is that all the people we want testing sure as _hell_ won't be testing -rc versions.

That's the whole point here, at least to me. I want to have people test things out, but it doesn't matter how many -rc kernels I'd do, it just won't happen. It's not a "real release".

People don't test 2.6-rc releases because they know they are not "release candidate, with only bug fixes" releases, which is how the rest of the world interprets the phrase.

Making them official releases in the even/odd manner is what neilb implies. You'll just be diminishing the value of releases. A "real release" won't be a real release anymore. You're just renaming the -rc that isn't really an -rc.

Jeff


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