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Torvalds Polls Desire for Linux's Next Major Version Bump

Posted by Soulskill on from the numbers-game dept.

jones_supa writes: Linus Torvalds made this post about Linux version numbering: "So, I made noises some time ago about how I don't want another 2.6.39 where the numbers are big enough that you can't really distinguish them. We're slowly getting up there again, with 3.20 being imminent, and I'm once more close to running out of fingers and toes. I was making noises about just moving to 4.0 some time ago. But let's see what people think. So — continue with v3.20, because bigger numbers are sexy, or just move to v4.0 and reset the numbers to something smaller?" To voice your opinion, the Google+ post allows you to discuss the matter and cast a vote in a poll.

3 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Is semver too simplistic for kernels? by tomxor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Makes it sound like what determines a version bump is somewhat arbitrary, are kernels just too complex for them to fit into a simple versioning convention?

    1. Re:Is semver too simplistic for kernels? by Lodragandraoidh · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would argue for adding an extra decimal point: W.X.Y.Z

      'W' - Major Release - reserved for significant rewrite/technology/architectural changes

      'X' - New Feature Release - significant changes to existing architecture/technology

      'Y' - Minor Release - minor changes to existing architecture/technology - could be for major bug patches, or other miscellaneous performance enhancements that we want to differentiate from previous releases.

      'Z' - Patches - things that do not rise to the level of a full release - could be for minor bug fixes, or to track iterative evolution and re-factoring of a small component of the overall system. Having the extra number here would allow you to keep each individual decimal number smaller by selectively rolling the number above it without necessarily impacting your major release numbers - basically it splits up the last number - which seems to get a lot of use - into two numbers to spread the load.

      --

      Lodragan Draoidh
      The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
  2. Follow the Ubuntu versioning scheme. by nbritton · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Follow the Ubuntu versioning scheme, it's simple... kernel was release in Febuary 2015, then you would call it 15.2