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Linux 2.6 Kernel Stability Freeze
An anonymous reader writes "Linux Creator Linus Torvalds released the 2.6.0-test7 Linux development kernel today and declared a "stability freeze". It has been made quite clear that from this point only "strictly necessary stuff" will be accepted, clearing the way for an official 2.6.0 release sooner than later... possibly at the end of this month."
Whoops! Hold on a second.
The stability freeze only means that no new features will be added. There are still lots of bugs to be worked out. Else we'd have a 2.6.0 release instead of a freeze.
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I've been using 2.6.0-test4-mm4 daily without problems. No glitches. The 2.6.0 kernel has real improvments in the shape of Alsa being mainstream. Also the I/O schedular + interactivity is much better under load than the 2.4 kernel.
Of course however I won't be putting 2.6 into production use until at least 2.6.8 or there abouts to make sure there are no nasty surprises in there
Rus
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More hypocrisy, like before. Linux can put out several filesystem corrupting kernel releases and major showstoppers as in the 2.4.x series, but if a user-transmitted e-mail virus makes the rounds, it's a "Microsoft hole."
Linux doesn't put out Linux releases, Linux is Linux. And Linux is used in several distributions - you can get a five nines Linux distribution if you like. Bugridden open source software does get flack -- distributions don't incorporate a kernel they don't feel comfortable with (RedHat's kernels are heavily patched for instance), no-one will touch wuftpd with a 50 ft pole, people wil nag authors with patches, fork or start competing projects (qmail, postfix vs. sendmail) etc.
Speaking about qmail and open source software getting flack, ever read DJB's comments on BIND and sendmail? Or ANY holy war? (BSD vs. linux, EMACS vs. VI,.. )
User-transmitted e-mail virusses? That's called a trojan horse. Recent worms -- exploiting holes on Microsoft's e-mail client running on Microsoft's operating system and Microsoft's browser -- depend on bugs and design in Microsoft's software and that's squarely their responsibility (e.g. why is RPC even listening to anything but localhost by default? If you needed it to listen to the entire internet, you'd know and could change the default).
Besides, those crappy kernels you mention haven't affected me one bit. Whereas I've spent quite some time getting people to install patches, firewalls, and remove those darned worms.
Some people may have a certain amount of unfounded (or at least, not founded in technical fact) animosity towards Microsoft, but let's face it, most mature open source software we rely on is much, much more secure, stable and well-designed than MS Outlook and its ilk. And that most certainly includes the Linux kernel. Comparing apples and oranges, maybe (the 2k/XP kernel isn't half bad either) but that doesn't mean that Microsoft should get away with crappy products that aren't kernels.
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