Linux 2.6 Kernel Pool Results

jafo writes "Steve Ratcliffe, Master Software Project Estimator, has most correctly estimated the release of the Linux version 2.6 kernel. On January 6, 2001 (within 4 hours of when the 2.6 kernel pool was opened), he entered a guess which was accurate within 15 hours. Check the results for some interesting statistics and submit your guess for the 2.8 pool." See the original story if you like.

Comments

Well...

[i_am_syco]

I put in a guess for Christmas eve. 2003.

Re:Well...

[GigsVT]

Stefans law: Never release between thanksgiving and Jan1.

Re:Well...

[AKnightCowboy]

I think v2.6.0 will be released December 18th, 2003 around 3am and v2.6.1 will be released January 5th, 2004. Did I win anything?

Re:Well...

[bubkus_jones]

Well, 2.6.0 screwed that up

Re:Well...

[Captain Pedantic]

Good one

Missing Pool Option

[Anonymous Coward]

Duke Nukem: Forever release.

Re:Missing Pool Option

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that maps to a time_t of 2147483647+1 implying that time travel of some sort is required.

At least Linus didn't win ...

[FelixCat]

Since then we would have had proof the competition was fixed!

Re:At least Linus didn't win ...

[MadelineAlbright]

Do you suppose Linus has 2.8.0 hidden away and will bring it out before the election?

But really, I'm just joking!

Re:At least Linus didn't win ...

[Drantin]

All he would had to do to do that would be to release it at the moment he said, without caring if it was ready or not...(or getting it ready way ahead of time and releasing it then...

Re:At least Linus didn't win ...

[horza]

Since then we would have had proof the competition was fixed!

Even if you let the software engineer doing the designing enter the competition, the chances are that his guess will be the furthest off.

Phillip.

Gambling on kernels - is it a good idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, if the contributors(who can remain anonymous - it is open source, after all!) have a stake in the time the kernal is released, can't that cause some conflicts of interest vis a vis quality control, bug fixing, and overall process ownership?

Re:Gambling on kernels - is it a good idea?

[LearnToSpell]

Maybe if first prize was a million bucks or something. I tend to doubt that a root access prize on some random box will really affect Linus's decision on when to release.

Re:Gambling on kernels - is it a good idea?

[freakmn]

If he really wanted that, he *could* put it in the kernel. Root access at the kernel level could be arranged by someone with his knowledge. Fortunately, the Open Source Model allows others to see the code, and that would be taken out...

Well, made my guess...

[heironymouscoward]

But I'm not saying what it was. Otherwise everyone will want to vote for 29 September 2005!

Re:Well, made my guess...

[Dr. Mojura]

That's really weird.... I picked the exact same day, and I swear I didn't see your post

How are we supposed to do it?

[Storm]

...With no LOTR releases slated for 2005...

Quick, somebody call Peter Jackson. Get him working on a Silmarillion release for December 2005...

Re:How are we supposed to do it?

[peragrin]

Actually the rumors that run ramapt say that we may have a remake of the Hobbit.( the story of Bilbo Baggins) It is supposed to be around that time. After he gets done filming some new king kong flick

Re:How are we supposed to do it?

[Goalie_Ca]

Obviously you haven't read the Silmarillion or you'd be running in the other direction.

Re:How are we supposed to do it?

[Webmonger]

I pity the fool who's read the whole thing.

Re:How are we supposed to do it?

[Theatetus]

It would make an awful movie, IMO, until we get about ten more generations of CG graphics technology.

It would be a great opera/symphony cycle any time, however...

Re:How are we supposed to do it?

[ultranova]

It would be a great opera/symphony cycle any time, however...

Blind Guardian - Nightfall in Middle-Earth.

Excellent music, and roughly follows the plot of Silmarillion (starts with War of Wrath, thought).

Re:How are we supposed to do it?

[ultranova]

Of course you'd have to do heavy editing. However, I do believe that you could make a good movie out of Silmarillion.

Start with the creation of Silmarils, with the backstory told in flashbacks by Morgoth as he watches and starts to lust for them. Follow the elf band that took the northern route to Middle-Earth (more dramatic). Once in Middle-Earth, cull most of the side plots. Luthien and Beren goes in, of course. Basically, keep Morgoth as the central character (as he is the only one who really stays constant in this whole mess.

End with a massive, long battle scene from the War of Wrath.

On second thought... Maybe this isn't such a good idea. Maybe it would work better as a tv series (one story per episode) ? Or maybe make a movie, and put the side stories into TV episodes ?

Or maybe just make the whole thing into a computer game ? At least it wouldn't lack challenge (Mission: Kill all enemies. Your forces: 100 elves. Enemy forces: 100 000 orcs, 100 dragons, 1000 balrogs, 500 vampires, 1 Sauron, 1 Morgoth).

M$

[gustgr]

What might had been microsoft guess ? Never ?

Re:M$

[gustgr]

Ohh no ... that was SCO's guess

2.8.0?

[alitaa]

what if they call it 3.0.0? :D

Re:2.8.0?

[unborn]

Then the correct answer would be "Never".

Guess in the past

[Piggymon]

First guess submitted on 2001-01-06
Most optimistic guess: 2001-01-05 by Bill Segall
Bill, you're a GENIUS!

Re:Guess in the past

[freakmn]

I don't quite uderstand how that is ranked. That particular guess was ranked 2399 out of 2421. That means that 22 people did worse! Also, Perhaps that is a joke name? If it was in the "last name, first name" format, as names are printed many times, it would be SeGall, Bill (Seagull Bill). As in the beak of a seagull. It could also be a coincidence, as I have a friend who's recently born son was named Caine Novak, written as "Novak, Caine" (Novacaine). I think perhaps she was in pain when she named him? But by the time she realized that the name worked like that, she had already filled out the birth certificate and notified relatives.

Re:Guess in the past

[mabinogi]

There were some guesses that were out by 5 and 10 years..so I'd say it was ranked based purely on how close to the date it was and didn't take into account impossible guesses

Re:Guess in the past

[fatgav]

Could be a bug in his time calculator.

I just tried to enter 1:30 on 13/May (won't say which year) and the confirmation page said I had entered around 11 on the 12/May. Perhaps he just did the same thing.

Anybody else get this?

Re:Guess in the past

[Feztaa]

First guess submitted on 2001-01-06
Most optimistic guess: 2001-01-05 by Bill Segall
Bill, you're a GENIUS!

If you consider his goal to have been "get name known by all the slashdot trolls", he was remarkably successful.

Call George

[ignipotentis]

And find out when exactly episode 3 will be released.

He's a shill

[grub]

Obviously Steve Ratcliffe works for SCO and new in advance when they'd release the new kernel of their OS.

Link for 2.8 guess is wrong

[sparkes]

This link adds a guess for the 2.6 release. Anyone getting this wrong after the event deserves to lose ;-)

Re:Link for 2.8 guess is wrong

[PieEye]

It says that you're voting for 2.8, however the submission response page incorrectly states 2.6. You're voting for 2.8, and they'll correct the page eventually.

Re:Link for 2.8 guess is wrong

[null-sRc]

You can noun a verb, but don't EVER verb a noun

i guess i shall stop monitoring your every move..

haha me is funny

Conspiracy

[clifgriffin]

I bet they purposefully released it at that time to make them win!

It's no different than my dad slowing down or speeding up so he'd win the time guesses in the old days.

KRUD

[Neon Spiral Injector]

I still have my KRUD CDs from coming in within the top 20 for 2.4. I missed 2.6 by a month. Both guesses were made the day the pool went up.

What?

[eurleif]

"You will be notified by e-mail of your final ranking when 2.6 is released."

What?

Re:splendid.

[GMFTatsujin]

I, for one, welcome them!

Interesting statistics...

[cperciva]

If you exclude the guesses which are obviously jokes (eg, 2038), then 96% of the guesses were optimistic. Obviously some elements of proprietary software development still hold true in OSS.

Also amusing: The median guess was April 1, 2002.

Re:Interesting statistics...

[cperciva]

You mean shipping later, rather than sooner?

No, I mean "on time, on budget, works properly. Pick none."

Re:Interesting statistics...

[StenD]

The same thing happens in proprietary software. Perhaps there's a lower rate of attrition in proptietary software once it's past the proposal stage, but I think that has a lot to do with the argument "We've already spent $bigbucks on the BlackHole project, do you want that to go to waste?", while with open source, if a project doesn't actually meet a need, the project is most likely going to wither away.

Re:Interesting statistics...

[jafo]

You're only dropping obvious jokes on one end though. I'm not sure if people are just being silly, or aren't understanding the time_t entry, but there are a lot of super optimistic entries.

For example, in the new pool there are a dozen or so entries within the next month. Do they think we're talking about 2.7?

Sean

damn

[Vilim]

I was guessing christmas day 2003 for the release of the 2.6 kernel. Oh well, I was wrong. For the 2.8 kernel I guessed December Fifth 2005 at 6:30 pm (the date and approxamate time when i will turn 20 years old)

Finally!

[Guano_Jim]

I, for, one, have been waiting for a swimming pool that can run Linux.

Re:Finally!

[foobsr]

Here you have it ... http://truetex.com/poolcontrol.htm

CC.

Re:Finally!

[Anonymous Coward]

1. I, for, one, have been waiting for a swimming pool that can run Linux.

Pah! I'm waiting for a shower that runs Linux!

Re:Finally!

[G3ckoG33k]

Boy, that ain't ... Guano, eh... ;)

SCO will tell us

[macdaddy]

Just ask McBride when he'll release the 2.8 kernel.

Diebold Machines?

[PincheGab]

Lemme guess... The kernel pool thing was run on Diebold voting machines, right? Give himself a 15 hour discrepancy to not make it look suspicious yet still win... No paper trail... hmmmm...

optimistic or stupid?

[gosand]

Most optimistic guess: 2001-01-05 19:36:18-07 by Bill Segall

Considering that the pool started on 2001-01-06,
"(First guess submitted on 2001-01-06 08:43:00 UTC by Ian Davis)"
could this really be considered optimistic, or just plain stupid?

Re:optimistic or stupid?

[Broodje]

No it's considered unable to find the handy dandy time_t() doo-hickey to convert the date correctly.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

You can still vote, though. Literacy/intelligence requirements are illegal.

Now this is an evil idea!

[SharpFang]

Imagine this, some hacker who takes part in kernel development submits a date, then sabotages the kernel, submits broken modules, introduces bugs, breaks stuff and keeps all the patches on his own harddisk. And finally, when kernel would be ready if not his own purposedly made bugs, he submits his patches one day before his "guessed date" and the kernel is released within next 24 hours, within 2h from his guess and four months later than it could've been released.

Re:Now this is an evil idea!

[mhesseltine]

While this seems funny, I doubt it would work for one simple reason; if someone is submitting bad patches, breaking modules, etc., I would hope that Linus, Alan, Marcello, (insert maintainer here) would quit accepting this person's patches.

After all, that's what the reputation game is all about. Those with talent are revered, those without are shunned until they can prove themselves worthy (probably through a stand-alone project).

Re:Now this is an evil idea!

[yarbo]

You know the kernel is ready when there are very few patches needed...

Re:I don't get it

[fgb]

I think Linux may be for people who are, at a minimum, capable of putting a sentence together. ;-)

You mean...

[va3atc]

Enter your vote for the SCO kernel 2.8 :P

What an interesting idea....

[ebbomega]

What a fantastic movie that would make...

"And then the elves went to war... again.... and they lost.... again...."

Re:wait

[wastaz]

I might be quite off on this, but isn't changing the major number (like 1 to 2, or 2 to 3) supposed to signal breaking backwards compatability of some sort?

Or am I totally out in the blue here? It wouldnt surprise me if I was..

Huh?

[Wrexen]

I clicked on this article and got this ad. Please, someone say it's a joke.... please :(

Re:Huh?

[The Jonas]

It seems to be real. Probably due to all the responses from this old poll.

Re:Huh?

[pbur]

Well, since it goes here: http://www.osdn.com/personals I would guess it's real.

Re:Huh?

[eclectro]

That's just plain scary. If I were a girl I would want to get away from that pool of badly-groomed stalkers as fast as I could!

Re:Huh?

[nathanroberts]

Well, as soon as I saw the ad I immediately recognized the chick. As in, I'd seen the ad before, not that I knew who she was. But I never even realized that it was an ad for personals.

Just goes to show how much I pay attention to the ads...

Is it me or is their time_t converter 14 hrs off?

[porkrind]

It says to enter the time in GMT, which I did. When I did that, the resulting date came out to be 14 hours earlier from what I entered. Wtf?

It wouldn't be correct even if they're trying to guess my time zone and adjust for that - which would be dumb anyway, otherwise why bother requesting the date in GMT?

What about the GNU/HURD Poll?

[miracle69]

Anyone run a release poll on that?

I wonder if Vegas has odds. If it does, I'd take the over.

Unfair advantage

[kbielefe]

Proprietary software managers have an unfair advantage in this pool. After all, for a living they make release schedules before anyone knows what the new software is actually going to do.

The schedule says we need to finish this in 6 months, but your estimates add up to a year so you'll have to do some stuff in parallel.

Uh, sir, it will still take just as long unless you hire some more staff. Even then, it will take some extra time for training.

But you said these modules were completely independent. You should be able to do two independent tasks in the same amount of time as one. Look how easy it is to schedule it that way in Microsoft Project.

Well, then why don't we all just do 12 at once so it will be done in a month instead of a year?

Don't be silly, it doesn't work that way. The schedule says six months. Boy, for how good you engineers are at algebra and calculus, you sure don't understand the basic mathematics of business.

nice graph

[butane_bob2003]

There is a nice graph of the guesses there. Looks like we will have to wait until later in 2005 for the 2.8 kernel.

Resume title

[unixformat]

To have the title "Master Software Project Estimator" on a resume would have to blow away all the other applicants to a job.

Re:wait

[planetsphinx]

This is what I've always understood..

the primary number (v1, v2, etc) is a MAJOR rewrite of the code..

the secondary number (x.1, x.2, etc) is a substantial release, lots of changes and upgraded code...

and the tertiary number (x.x1, x.x2, etc) are primarly big fixes.

Graph

[shoemakc]

That may have been one of the worst graphs I've ever seen. Com'on guys...havn't we heard of intervals?

-Chris

Predict 2.8? Why?

[tellurian]

2.6 ought to be enough for everybody

Re:wait

[gl4ss]

well.. i hate to break it to you but the version numberings don't have any rules that everyone would follow, if there's some unwritten rules people break them daily and marketing has the last say anyways.

they're just numbers, and when the version number is printed big on the box it's just marketing material(and how some software start from 4.0 or so).

Re:Is it me or is their time_t converter 14 hrs of

[ColaMan]

it's probably stored ok, but they're outputting it via some function that takes into account their local timezone.

Given enough guesser, all estimate will be shallow

[xusch]

This is how I see it...

What??!! 2.6.0 Was Released??!!

[Lord of the Fries]

Figures I'd find out from the results of someone's game show.

What, no OSS license for the winner this round?

[DrFatal]

Is it just me that think it's odd that 4Front didn't sponsor with a OSS license for the 2.6 betting pool?

What a rip off ...the prize was a load of KRUD :-D

[Grizzlysmit]

well it needed doing honest, ok the little blue men made me do it. :-D