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Linux Kernel to Fork?
Ninjy writes "Techworld has a story up about the possibility of the 2.7 kernel forking to accomodate large patch sets. Will this actually happen, and will the community back such a decision? "
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> Each version of the kernel requires applications to be
> compiled specifically for it.
FUD FUD FUD. No. no no no. NO!. Who writes this generic shit?. There's no truth behind the above statement and it just implies something that is not a problem.
In fact, out of all the news articles out there about linux 2.7, it seems (not that this surprises me) that slashdot went out of its way to pick one laden with the most possible negative FUD and the least possible useful information about what really is news with 2.7. A much better writeup can be found at LWN. In summary, the present situation is:
- The -mm tree of Andrew Morton is now the Linux development kernel, and
the 2.6 tree of Linus is now the stable kernel. This represents a role
reversal from what people were expecting last year when Andrew Morton was
named 2.6 maintainer.
- Andrew Morton is managing the -mm tree very well. Unlike all the previous
development kernels, the -mm tree is audited well enough that it is possible
to remove patches that prove to have no benefit (and this does often happen).
Bitkeeper is to some degree contributing to this flexibility, although
not every kernel developer uses it.
- The development process is going so smoothly that there may not need
to be a 2.7 at all; for the first time in linux development history the
developers are able to make useful improvements to linux while keeping it
somewhat stable. If there is a 2.7 at all, it will be used for major
experimental forks and there is no guarantee that the result will be
adopted for 2.8.
There is a story here, but you could easily be forgiven for missing it if you follow the link. The story is that linux development has changed, it is better than ever, and if (not when) 2.7 shows up, it's not gonna be the 2.7 that you're used to seeing.The writer of that article is an idiot. The linux kernel forks after every major release in order to accomodate large patches. How did we get to where we are today? Linux-2.4 forked into 2.4 and 2.5 to allow the major scheduler and other changes to be made on a non-production branch. Then 2.5 became 2.6 which was the new stable branch. Currently there are 4 maintained stable branches that I am aware of (2.0, 2.2, 2.4, and 2.6), having a new unstable branch is just the same path that Linux has been following for years. That writer needs to STFU and get a brain.
--Brandon
Why is it that every Windows XP user thinks the goal of the Linux community is to convince windows user to make the switch?
Dude - just stick with Winblows. You have no time to "know linux", as you put it, so just stick with what you know. You can post on Slashdot either way.
Please, developers, don't dumb Linux apps/distros down so much that it looks and feels like Windows.
Well, this was fun to read. This article is about as educated about the subject as the average donkey.
Uhm, what gave MS the edge in the 80s was cheap i386 (well, actually 8088) hardware, and a relatively cheap OS (MS-DOS). Unix servers cost an arm and a leg in those days, and many companies/people wanted a pc as cheap as possible. Buying an i386 in those days meant running DOS, and the "marketplace" standardized around MS-DOS.
Utter bull. Upgrade kernels as much as you like, it won't break software unless you change major/minor numbers perhaps. The same thing will happen to windows if you start running stuff for win2k on win'95. But this is rather a matter of features in the kernel, not compilation against the kernel.
And the big news is? This happens every couple of years, with stable versions having even minor version numbers and unstable versions having odd minor version numbers. This helps admins and users to effectively KNOW which versions are good for everyday use, and which versions are experimental and for developers.
Well, imagine a Beowulf cluster... How long have those patches existed? There's several ways to build a cluster as long as you patch your kernel.
And why on earth would they want to do that? Linux is on the right track, so why bother with an entire rewrite of good functional code with good design.
It's also focussed on multimedia (xmms, mplayer, xine), webservers (apache), mailservers (sendmail, qmail, postfix)... I'd rather have people say that open source has focussed on internet servers than stuff it needs to make an OS run and wordprocessors. This like saying that an oven is primarily being used for making toast, while actually it also bakes cake, pizza and whatever you toss inside.
I'm sorry, this kind of article belongs in the trashbin. Either the journalist doesn't know what he's writing about, or he's being paid to know nothing about the subject. One of the things that keeps suprising me in business IT journalism is the lack of knowledge these people have about the subjects they're writing about.