Stable kernels

Stable kernels

"I am sort of concerned that now that Linus is not going to make stable kernels, the RH way of handling 2.4 might be the only way to do stable kernels. I would prefer to see more collective stability engineering take place."

Wow, Bruce, you understand things rather differently than I do. The whole point of the new kernel development model is to allow the distributors to stop backporting tons of stuff into older kernels, and to cut way back on the huge piles of distributor kernel patches in general. We are trying to get away from the "RH way".

Linus very much intends to release stable kernels; it's just that the way to get there has changed. The "don't allow substantive changes for a year" approach doesn't work very well. It's better to get the patches into the mainline and get them used. The result has been a lot more functionality in the hands of the users more quickly, and some quite stable kernels. 2.6.8.1 has not been the best example, but 2.6.7 was quite solid, and 2.6.9 should be as well.