Linux Kernel 2.4 out by this Fall?

Skeezix writes "Linus says that he aims to make kernel upgrades more incremental instead of cramming tons of features into each major upgrade. The net result? The next major kernel upgrade might be out by Fall." I still haven't worked out all my kinks with 2.2 yet, at this rate 2.4 will be out before I sort it out!

Comments

Not sure

[Trepidity]

I'm not sure how good of an idea this is. Unless everybody starts coding a lot faster, the development is unlikely to speed up. All you're doing is taking what would've been called 2.2.25 and calling it 2.4.0 instead. However, this fiddling with the version numbers could lead to a decrease in overall quality, as moving from 2.2.x to 2.4.x will tend to tempt people to add more features, while keeping in the 2.2.x series leads to a bunch of bugfixes and optimizations, but few features added (i.e. 2.0.37 doesn't have that many more features than 2.0.0, but it is a lot more stable). More new features added and a shorter bugfix/optimization period leads to a more full-featured but less stable kernel. I suppose this is both a good and bad thing.

it made sense when he said it...

[peterjm]

the article doesn't really go into this, so (with out trying to show off the fact that I was there) I will.
according to linus, he was very un happy with the "pain" that people went through upgrading from 1.2-2.0 and then from 2.0-2.2 . he wants to avoid this as much as possible, (also stating that people shouldn't "have" to upgrade, but realizing the unmitagated joy in doing so). also, there was the time issue, something like 1.5 years from 1.2-2.0 and then like 2.5 years for the next jump.
in the future, the plan as linus stated it, was to implement less "major" changes between code-freezes in order to get the newer stuff out there quicker. that's all.

No marketing savvy

[DonkPunch]

Is Linus nuts? It's 1999 and he's still only releasing version 2.x? Look around, man! The Red Hat distro is up to version 6.0. SuSE is up to 6.1 (clearly, it's more up-to-date).

And Microsoft? Their development environments will all be 7.0 soon (clearly more up-to-date than any of those Linux products). Why, that's why MS renamed NT 5.0 to Windows 2000! Why buy NT 5.0 when I can have Red Hat 6.0 -- it's a bigger number, man!

For the sake of marketing, I propose a MASSIVE jump in kernel major numbers. Then all the distros can fall in line.

This fall, Linux 2.4 should be released as Linux 2001.0.0. Red Hat, SuSE, and everyone else can release with the same version and clear up all this confusion. Dev kernels can use the same system as now (2001.1.0, etc.)

/* Someone will take me seriously. Watch. It happens every time. Bunch of literalist geeks.... */