>There are a number of senior people working on the problem. We've already
>evaluated the CVS approach and find it lacking, and have a better plan in
>mind.
Define 'we' and 'senior people'. Just because they have a small number
of posts on this list doesn't mean that there are no other 'serious
Linux kernel developers' around. Maybe some others just don't like to
show off as others.
The great and strong thing of Linux is its openness. If there is a
'this is our Kernel, we manage it' policy is put into place, then
there _will_ be other kernel trees split away. We already have at
least four different kernel trees:
- The official 'Linus Linux (TM)'
- David Miller 'vger CVS Linux' - faster moving, more aggressive patch
inclusion, heavy leaned to running on non-Intel
- Alan Cox' pre-Patched Linux (2.1.1<xx>ac<y>) - sometimes heavy
diffing from the Linus releases
- All the Kernel source trees from the vendors (a Redhat distributed
kernel is an entirely different beast from Linus Linux)
As the Kernel is GPL, noone hinders me to set up a 'my private Linux'
or 'The Kernel formerly known as Linux', enforcing the policy that
people annoyed by this 'closing up the access' situation want to see
and attract them to this project. Then start lobbying around the
mailing lists, survive the resulting flame war and end up with the
Net/Free/OpenBSD situation => Lose/Lose Status (or better Lose/WinNT
Status).
I'd rather not enforce _any_ radical changes in the way the Linux
kernel is developed. Else you will shy away most of the people who do
this for fun and its lack of bueraucracy (I've seen proposals of
committee structures and patch submission queues through multilevel
subsystem maintainers. =:-O Huh, along this path there is _surely_
madness).
Yes, we must remove pressure from Linus as a person. But not by
implementing a patch approval commitee and a closing up policy.
Just my 0.02c (Cent as in Euro, not as in Dollar. ;-) )
Henning
P.S.: In fact I would like to say a really big "THANK YOU" to Bill
Hawes which I do consider one of the most important people on this
list just because he doesn't write just new code but tries to iron out
all the small bugs and quirks from the current kernel. IMHO this is at
least as important as "boldly programming what noone has programmed
before". I don't know how many small bug fixes and improvement came
from Bill on this list in the last few months. Thank you very much.
-- Dipl.-Inf. (Univ.) Henning P. Schmiedehausen -- hps@tanstaafl.de TANSTAAFL! Consulting - Unix, Internet, SecurityHutweide 15 Fon.: 09131 / 50654-0 "There ain't no such D-91054 Buckenhof Fax.: 09131 / 50654-20 thing as a free Linux"
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