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Linus Torvalds Promises Profanity Over Linux 3.10-rc5
hypnosec writes "Linus Torvalds has released Linux 3.10-rc5, and he is certainly not happy with the changes merged last week. Rc5 is bigger than rc4 and has code scattered across its entire code base because it addresses many outstanding problems. In the release announcement, Torvalds noted, 'I wish I could say that things are calming down, but I'd be lying. rc5 is noticeably bigger than rc4, both in number of commits and in files changed (although rc4 actually had more lines changed, so there's that).' Torvalds has warned that he is going to start cursing again, and said, 'I'm going to call you guys out on, and try to come up with new ways to insult you, your mother, and your deceased pet hamster.'"
Calm and measured explanations of just what the coders are doing wrong would be ever so much more helpful. If all Linus is going to do is mouth off then perhaps it's time he just STFU and GTFO.
Am I the only one that sees the dead hamster thing as a joke? Linus is not happy but he also seems to be making light of the situation. As for businesses choosing MS over Linux, I suppose you don't wander into many server rooms. I know in ones I've been in, there are as many or more Linux servers than Windows servers.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Business owners aren't reading the linux kernel mailing list.
Oh come on. Did people shun Microsoft when Ballmer did the Sweaty Monkey Dance or threaten to "fucking kill Google"?
No one of consequence cares when Linus Torcalds acts like a petulant child - if they have an interest in Linux, they're more concerned about support availability and duration.
#DeleteChrome
You understand what "release candidate" is right? A release candidate is not a time for adding new enhancements. It should be for streamlining and tightening the code for release. The fact that RC5 is bigger than RC4 means that people either were not doing their jobs in the previous 3 releases or that the code submitted earlier was so crappy that it needs more work. Release candidates should get smaller than the previous not larger.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
There's a more complete explanation in the article.
At this point in the RC cycle, the expectation is that only bug fixes will be introduced. The latest merge include changes that had nothing to do with listed issues.
New features belong in the 3.11 branch.
He's angry because many of the changes are to non-critical stuff. That's not the priority, and it gets in the way.
Here's part of his quote in context, which the summary didn't bother to provide:
Because people aren't sending him fixes for concerns that have to be addressed before the release. They're sending him "this is a bit messy, here's code that looks a bit cleaner" or "it works but I don't like it so here's a different way to do the same thing". And sometimes as the manager you have to smack the devs with the cluebat to get them to remember that it doesn't matter if the code's messy or ugly, it doesn't matter if there's another way to do it, it doesn't matter if there's a better way to do it, by the time you're at the release-candidate stage the only things you should be sending in changes for are fixes for the things that're actually not working right. If you don't, they'll keep tweaking forever and you'll never get a release. As a dev myself I can understand where Linus is coming from here. I doubt he's even really mad at anyone, just irritated at everyone and issuing a pointed reminder that there's a difference between what the devs want to do and what they ought to be doing before he does have to get mad at anyone.
I mean speaking as a developer when I'm working and at this point I don't want to put in any new features. It's usually one of the managers or QA with a stupid "Hey lets put in a new feature right at the end" request.(And then it becomes "How willing am I to put up a fight over this?") I'm honestly surprised with no managers (and I mean business oriented managers) that this still happened.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Mine is "Thanks!"
It's a three-layer process. Devs themselves are expected to adhere to the rules. Then the subsystem maintainers are supposed to filter changes to their subsystems. And finally Linus is the final arbiter on what gets merged into the release branch. Technically devs can check in anything they want, but it has to go through the subsystem maintainers and Linus to get into the release. Linus' role here is prodding the subsystem maintainers and the devs themselves to remember the rules and stop sending him so many things to sort through. It's easier on him if it's 90% rubber-stamp approvals and if a few stragglers get through it's not causing any widespread issues, as opposed to if it's 50% cruft and if he doesn't scrutinize everything carefully it's going to be a mess.
Linux the kernel runs extremely well on everything from smartphones to supercomputers, obviously it's more than ready for the desktop. The challenge (remember, we don't have problems anymore) is the desktop environment and the applications, none of which are Linus' responsibility. And right now I'd take bets that Android hybrids conquers the desktop before Unity, Gnome 3, KDE or any of the existing solutions do. Too bad we can't clone him so he could run those projects too, because he's got both the doer gene and the manager gene. Forget about the kernel for a moment, remember the BitKeeper debacle? Other managers of a huge project like the kernel might do a lot of things, but I don't know anyone else but Linus who sits down and cranks out git on top of everything else. He's not just floating on past glory, he keep earning that respect he enjoys.
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