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New Linux Kernel Development Process
An anonymous reader writes "Releasing the 2.6.13-rc4 Linux Kernel, Linus Torvalds announced an improved development process to try and minimize the number of bugs in the kernel. The general idea is simple: changes will only be allowed for two weeks after the release of a stable kernel. All the rest of the time between releases will be spent on fixing bugs. This should improve upon last year's development module, which allows for active development in the 2.6 stable kernel."
It almost sounds like a normal sw dev process.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
It means the longer you wait, the more stable the kernel will be.
No more lucky dips, and less need to depend on the vendors tracked patchsets.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
This seems to work successfully for a number of open source projects, which use a version numbering system that allows users to tell at a glance whether they're using a development version.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
No need. The distros all ship modular kernels. If e.g. your server has no audio hardware, no audio drivers will be loaded. IMHO maintaining two separate kernel branches would be inefficient - and if two, why not a third, low-power kernel branch, and a fourth, router-optimized kernel branch? This road leads to madness, and we lose sight of the fact that the one general purpose linux kernel is flexible enough that it works pretty well on everything from embedded devices to gaming workstations to mainframes to supercomputers.
Assuming there is a valid case for a desktop performance oriented kernel and a server performance oriented kernel, the vendors could easily provide separate optimized kernel packages, built from the same source, but with different options. The desktop users want low latency for video, music and 3D FPS gaming, while server users want scalability and throughput...
In fact some vendors may already be doing this.
Didn't Torvalds once say something along the line that 'perfect is the enemy of good' when criticizing BSD? Is he moving away from 'good-enough' with lots of features constantly coming out, towards a more BSD-esque, move along slowly with stable-code philosophy?
As I think more about this decision, I wonder why not simply split the development between bug fixes and feature providers.
For example, Linux kernel 2.7 is released.
We run regression test on it for a week or two.
At that point, we document all known bugs and hand them and the entire 2.7 codebase off to our bug fixing team.
Then we identify improvements to current capabilities as well as new features we want to add, document all of it clearly, and hand that off to the feature team along with their own copy of the 2.7 baseline.
Then we have our bug guys working the 2.7_bugfix baseline and our features guys adding valuable new code to the 2.7_features baseline.
Prior to the next release, we merge all the changes together, spend a week sorting out any dependecy problems and interface problems, then we ship.
And repeat.
Sounds feasible to me. I just don't like the feeling I get when thinking that there's such a short development window.
The Linux kernel is already pretty darn stable, especially when compared to other operating systems. Let's keep the new features coming!
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I think you misunderstood the concept. A developer doesn't have 2 weeks to insert new functionality. A developer can work on enhanced performance or new features for 9 months, but there is a 2-week window after each release in which patches will be accepted.
The two things are orthogonal. Once the code has been thoroughly tested and a patch is ready it should be no problem for the core developers to email the patches to Mr Torvalds within that 2-week window of opportunity. I see no problem here.
I remember when the Linux kernel was rock solid, stable and reliable. I remember when there were no huge code changes in the "stable" even-numbered kernel series. Remember those days? I'm talking late 2.2.x before the whole VM debacle in the first part of 2.4.x.
In the last few years, it seems the push to carve out marketshare on the desktop has been fuelling kernel development more so than server-oriented work. I've been frustrated to the point of recommending Linux-kernel-based systems only with caution and caveats, preferring instead Solaris for serious enterprise-level server-side work.
If this works out, it'd be a boon for enterprise adoption of the Linux kernel. Hats off to Linus et al. for this change in their practices.
--rc
In British usage, either spelling is correct, although I think that the -ise spelling is more common: it also tends to be the form used by official publications.
The Oxford Dictionary has always preferred -ize, although this is more through tradition and stubborn prescriptivism than anything else. (And maybe the fact that one of the original edition's most prolific contributors was the American murderer and lunatic William Chester Minor, then detained in Britain, might have had some small part to play.) Older editions of Chambers, on the other hand, preferred -ise to the extent of not even acknowledging the -ize variant.
I think that the strong desire to differentiate British usage from its colonial counterpart has also led to an increase in the usage of -ise, in an analoguous process to that in which Noah Webster attempted to Americanise the US orthography for political reasons.
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.