Revamped Linux Kernel Numbering Concluded

kernel_dan writes "Following on the heels of a prior discussion about a kernel numbering scheme, KernelTrap has the conclusion. From summary: "Linus Torvalds decided against trying to add meaning to the odd/even least significant number. Instead, the new plan is to go from the current 2.6.x numbering to a finer-grained 2.6.x.y. Linus will continue to maintain only the 2.6.x releases, and the -rc releases in between. Others will add trivial patches to create the 2.6.x.y releases. Linus cautions that the task of maintaining a 2.6.x.y tree is not going to be enjoyable.'" Torvalds suggested specific guidelines to alleviate burn-out of the .y maintainer and Greg KH volunteered to begin maintainership."

Comments

Numbering... eek.

[Faust7]

Others will add trivial patches to create the 2.6.x.y releases. Linus cautions that the task of maintaining a 2.6.x.y tree is not going to be enjoyable.

2.6.x...
2.6.x.y...
2.6.x.y.z...

Kind of a Zeno's Paradox, isn't it?

What was wrong with the old way?

[AdamHaeder]

What was wrong with .4 being stable and .5 being test? Why not start a .7?

I haven't been following the kernel mailing list, but as a regular linux user from way back, I'm not clear on why the old way was dropped. This way seems a lot more confusing to me.

Re:What was wrong with the old way?

[A beautiful mind]

The developers just felt there is no urgent need for 2.7 yet and also that 2.6 can accept more features in a semi-stable state than it would be truly a need for 2.7.

Re:What was wrong with the old way?

[Atzanteol]

They're trying for a more rapid development cycle. 2.6 hasn't feature frozen like in the past.

It seems to be what the vendors want. RedHat 2.4 kernels have so much 2.6 stuff back-ported they're barely 2.4 anymore.

Re:What was wrong with the old way?

[Malor]

I've only ever had one comment modded down as Flamebait.... this may be #2.

As near as I can tell from reading recent comments on this particular decision, the single biggest reason they don't want to do 2.7 is because not enough people will test it. Only by calling it 'stable' can they get enough testers. Of course, the fact that it will now never really BE stable, seems to have been lost on them.

This is better than what they have been doing, but only slightly. What Linus seems to really want is for everyone in the whole world to be using the very most recent kernel. He wants, in essence, everyone in the world to be beta testers. By putting out new code and calling it 'stable', he gets hundreds of thousands of testers, and is able to shake out bugs much faster.

Apparently, the possibility that it might be banks and hospitals that are discovering these bugs didn't occur to them. Discovering a bug is an EXTREMELY PAINFUL PROCESS for someone who isn't expecting one. So instead of doing the nasty hard work of maintaining separate stable and development branches, they push that pain onto everyone else in the world.

Personally, I want software that works more than I want the latest whizbang feature. That's why I got onto Linux in the first place, a decade ago... I was frustrated with Windows. It was such a delight to run software that never, ever crashed. It was crude, it was simple, but it was *incredibly* reliable, and that more than any other single thing is why I switched.

I find it quite ironic that Windows 2003, in the hands of capable admins, with all its design flaws and warts, is substantially more stable than is Linux. There's a reason Ars Technica switched from Linux to Windows, and stayed there. If anyone on the planet is competent, it's those guys. And from the sound of it, they're very happy with the results.

At this point, I'm so disgusted with this state of affairs that I'm running a test installation of FreeBSD. Their development cycle is much saner. They don't have as many features, but the ones they DO have, seem to work. Maybe they should add a new motto: "Software by Adults, for Folks Who Could Lose Their Job if it Breaks".

*sigh*

You know

[mcc]

Linus Tourvalds keeps insisting he's just a coder and nothing more, and Alan Cox and everybody keep insisting he's just a coder and nothing more, but watching him in situations like this... he really is is disturbingly competent as a project manager. Like, to a degree that betrays a large amount of talent. I think he and others really sell him short... but of course one of the reasons he's so effective is because the relatively unassuming way in which he approaches things means people's attention is diverted elsewhere, thus allowing him to actually get stuff done :P

Re:Here's an idea...

[MidnightBrewer]

I suspect the recent trend over the years to stay attached to point-point-point releases, especially for those projects that take forever and a day to hit 1.0, isn't so much an honesty thing as a sub-conscious desire to avoid responsibility for mistakes. I'm not referring to legal liability so much as professional pride. "Of course it has bugs, it's still not 1.0!" I'm sorry, but that's not realistic. People don't get paid to be perfectionists; that's a conceit to be enjoyed on your own time.

You do your best, you release it as 1.0, and then you start all over again to fix bugs and work towards the next full release. Making the numbers smaller doesn't change the quality of your software, it just helps a programmer live with the perceived embarrassment of not writing the perfect piece of code. In the final analysis, the numbers are all arbitrary; any sense of pride in your work or shame about your mistakes is a personal issue. Take Apple as an example. You could strip the 10 off of 10.3.8 and say that they are on version 3.8 of OS X. That means that version 4.0 is just around the corner, and that makes their turn-around cycle sound that much more impressive. To those who protest that a full point release demands unbelievable innovation and "drastic code re-writes," I have to ask, "Where is that written?" In the final analysis, versioning is all in your head. :)

Re:Why use x-y?

[J_Omega]

Depends on what you consider "natural" though, right? I'm willing to bet that the first human use of a coordinate system was polar. ie. "go 1000 paces, that-a-way"

Confused?

[wiggles]

See this.

Re:Here's an idea...

[Cthefuture]

It's not exactly the same. It's version 5.1 build 2600. A build number is a lot different than an actual version number.

Personally I think many projects (especially open-source) are getting out of hand with the version numbers. Just look at some of the version information on some Debian packages.

I mean, you have stuff like version "testing-4.3.0.dfsg.1-12.0.1". Does no one else see that as insane? I know each part has a purpose, but it seems more like improper project management. Is this possibly caused by a lack of proper scheduling? Things take too long and people start branching off into separate sub-versions.

It's the same thing with the kernel. I see no reason for official kernels to have so many frickin sub-versions. KISS, please. I think you reach a certain point and then the versions have lost all meaning. End-users can't keep track of all this stuff. Please implement better project management practices and just do actual releases with a simple versioning scheme.