Slashdot Mirror
Torvalds Bemoans Size of RC7 For Linux Kernel 3.5
alphadogg writes "A host of small modifications and a large number of system-on-a-chip and PowerPC fixes inflated the size of release candidate No. 7 for Version 3.5 of the Linux kernel, according to curator Linus Torvalds' RC7 announcement, made on Saturday. Torvalds wasn't happy with the extensive changes, most of which he said he received Friday and Saturday, saying 'not cool, guys' in the announcement. However, the occasionally combustible kernel curator didn't appear to view this as a major setback. 'Now, admittedly, most of this is pretty small. The loadavg calculation fix patch is pretty big, but quite a lot of that is added comments,' he wrote, referring to the subroutine that measures system workload."
Eh, at bit. But I will defend his ripping into the opensuse devs about using the root password for everything until my last breath.
There are few things more painful than a swollen kernel.
Linus is getting bitchy lately.
Yeah, and RMS was talking non-sense yesterday. What is the world coming to ...
morcego
Who the hell this Linus thinks he is by criticizing Linux development??!111?
"Not cool guys." - linus OHMYGHOSH, front page news.
Linus is mainly complaining because he wants bugfixes to come in during the merge window. The RC's are then used to iron out bugs that got added by features that were added during the merge window OR to fix existing bugs that were too invasive to fix in a normal 3.x.x update. The idea is that the change from 3.4 to 3.5-rc1 is massive, 3.5rc-1 to 3.5rc2 is smaller, 3.5rc2 to rc3 is even smaller. And it keeps getting smaller until the number of commits is very low, and those commits are very small changes themselves. This SHOULD have been 3.5 release, but instead a ton of large commits were done after rc6 and that makes Linus uncomfortable about labeling 3.5 as Stable until people have a change to test out those new commits. The more commits people do past like rc2, the longer the delay until 3.5 is marked as stable and released, honestly unless im forgetting something, I havent seen a 7th release candidate for any kernel since the change to 3.0, most of them have been capping around 5. By a 7th RC there shouldnt be really anything going on unless an email comes in that is labeled "URGENT KERNEL PANIC FIX" and from the sounds of it...none of these were that, and could have all been saved for the merge window for 3.6. Instead we have the 3.5 kernel delayed by another week.
I think the point is not so much the swelling but the fact that this is a huge bunch of stuff to be thrown in during an RC cycle, between rc6 and rc7. You're not really supposed to be doing anything major to a release candidate...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Sounds like the kernel could use a good refactoring.
Because too many people contributed too many patches during a window in the development cycle when not many (or large) patches should be contributed?
Umm... I think you didn't understand what the problem is here. It's a violation of development process protocol that has nothing to do with the quality of the code. Someone trying to submit refactoring patches would have made it much worse, not better. Actually, it wouldn't have been worse, because Linus would just have rejected them at this point in time.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
It seems like part of what he's trying to point out here is that there may be developers trying to cram in what are really new features into 3.5 by declaring them bugs and pushing them into RC's, rather than waiting until the next release. This behavior wouldn't surprise me in the least.
I am officially gone from
Yeah, and RMS was talking non-sense yesterday. What is the world coming to ...
Yesterday? I'm a big fan of RMS - since before the beard - but the day he doesn't talk non-sense will be news.
Exactly my point. Just like the day Linus doesn't get bitchy :)
Geez, I figured we were all past the <sarcasm> tag already.
morcego
Sounds like the kernel could use a good refactoring.
Let's recode the whole thing, and this time, we'll do it RIGHT!
There are few things more painful than a swollen kernel.
It's nothing an antibiosic shot wouldn't fix.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
The way to achieve what you say Linus wants is for him to reject/postpone changes that fall outside RC criteria. "Sorry, the train has left the station. There's another one due to leave at 3.6." When developers learn that the development phase criteria are enforced they will adjust their behavior to fall in line, but contrapositively they will not adjust their behavior if the criteria are not enforced.
My sympathy is miniscule -- if RC-appropriate changes are what he wants then he should reject/postpone the changes in question as falling outside RC criteria instead of kvetching about them. It's a self-made and self-perpetuated problem; developers will abuse largesse only as long as they are allowed to.
Cyrano de Maniac
The way to achieve what you say Linus wants is for him to reject/postpone changes that fall outside RC criteria. "Sorry, the train has left the station. There's another one due to leave at 3.6." When developers learn that the development phase criteria are enforced they will adjust their behavior to fall in line, but contrapositively they will not adjust their behavior if the criteria are not enforced.
He does. All the time. And people try bending the rules and stretching the definitions. All the time. You make it sound like Linus only had to tell them once and everybody'd go "well alright then" but it's more like a horny teenager with a girl on the back row of the cinema. No matter how many times those hands are pushed back they'll be back in a slightly different way or after another round of sweet talk. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about or what this "girl" thing is, you can imagine it's like the lobbyists in politics. No matter how many times a bill is defeated they'll keep pushing for new laws that amount to the same. In all three cases they just don't quit until they succeed.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings