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Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek)
InformationWeek
covers the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit.
"A broad cross section of the Linux community, meeting on the Google campus Wednesday in Mountain View, Calif., focused on advancing the development of Linux and shrugged off the threat of Microsoft's claims of Linux patent infringement. The gathering included six kernel developers, who started off a Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit by holding a town-hall-style question-and-answer session with about 70 representatives of Linux users, independent software vendor firms, and reporters.
The Linux Foundation organized the event as a way to bring together the different elements of the Linux community in one setting."
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Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 14, 2007 21:59 UTC (Thu) by wilreichert (subscriber, #17680) [Link] "Linux kernel releases now are issued every two to three months as a way of allowing Linux application developers to work with new features and functionality, without waiting for major kernel releases."
Huh?
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 14, 2007 22:14 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] If you check the release dates for the recent 2.6.x kernels, you'll see that the time between releases is indeed two to three months. Our perception of time is often unreliable.
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 14, 2007 22:20 UTC (Thu) by Felix_the_Mac (guest, #32242) [Link] If the parent was disagreeing with this part of the quoted text:
"without waiting for major kernel releases"
then I would say that the quote is accurate since previously major developments went into the unstable series e.g 2.5, and this resulted in very long delays before new features would arrive on users desktops (or servers).
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 14, 2007 23:22 UTC (Thu) by sprink (guest, #45735) [Link] If major development changes are put directly to the 2.6.x releases, then what dictates a new 2.x release?
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 14, 2007 23:41 UTC (Thu) by lmb (subscriber, #39048) [Link] Linus dictates that if he ever wakes up one morning and feels that the time has come ;-)
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 15, 2007 2:32 UTC (Fri) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] From what I recall of discussion on LKML, major architectural changes that would require a long-term, concerted development effort and were very likely to break a lot of things. The new development model has seen some massive code changes, though, so it's not likely that 2.7 will happen anytime soon.
Let alone 3.0. For 3.0 to happen, I recall Linus saying something about "moving to a microkernel
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 15, 2007 6:21 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] <odd>.x.x: Linus went crazy, broke absolutely _everything_, and rewrote the kernel to be a microkernel using a special message-passing version of Visual Basic. (timeframe: "we expect that he will be released from the mental institution in a decade or two") here.
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 15, 2007 16:23 UTC (Fri) by jbailey (subscriber, #16890) [Link] I suspect that it'll be dictated by hitting the number 255. The kernel version is represented as 0x020616 in linux/version.h. I think that's now considered a public interface, so probably can't be broken.
Or, as someone said, Linus gets up and decides that the sun is shining at *exactly* the right angle...
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 15, 2007 2:32 UTC (Fri) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] "Major" means 2.6.x->2.8.0
The old release cycle, just to refresh the memory, was *AWFUL*.
The development cycle would stretch on and on, new features being added... Linus would warn that a freeze was close... The development cycle would stretch on and on, new features being added... Linus would warn that a freeze was close... The development cycle would stretch on and on, new features being added... Linus would declare a feature freeze... The development cycle would stretch on and on, new features being added with extra time spent arguing over whether features would go in or not... Linus would a declare a feature freeze... for real, this time! The development cycle would stretch on and on, new features being added. More argument about whether they should go in... Linus would declare a code freeze. The development cycle would stretch on and on, more features being added. Linus would declare that they've done everything they can without more testers and issue a 2.x.0 release...
(If you think that paragraph was a terror to read, I have succeeded in capturing the feeling of living through it.) ;-)
And then... debugging would go on and on for another 10 months until Linus finally decided to just rip out the VM and replace it with something else.
Those who deride the current system have obviously forgotten the "Nightmare On Elm Street" that the old system was. (I'm not accusing you, wilreichert.) :-)
I thank God (and I'm an athiest!) that Linus finally found a system that allowed him to feel comfortable saying "no" when he needed to and not months after the appropriate time.
It may not be perfect. But it is one *hell* of a lot less of a horror than the "Halloween 2.3" and "Halloween 2.5" development cycles were! ;-)
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 15, 2007 5:35 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link] 2.1 wasn't any better
you forgot to mention a coupld of the other horrors of the era
new hardware was frequently only suported in the development kernel, so if you had a computer purchased less then two years prior you probably needed to run a development kernel (I had the joy of building a box with 2.1.169 and shipping it across the country to be put into a cage with no remote access)
and then the final disaster was watching the distro kernels diverge from each other. sometimes getting the the point that some software would not run on anything other then that distro without code changes
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 14, 2007 22:22 UTC (Thu) by lightgod (guest, #45773) [Link] I favour it strongly.
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 15, 2007 15:53 UTC (Fri) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link] Microsoft? Is that some new distro? Sounds vaguely familiar, didn't they have something called Xenix once?
;-)
Linux Summit: Forget Microsoft. Let's Get Back To Development (InformationWeek) Posted Jun 15, 2007 18:16 UTC (Fri) by oak (subscriber, #2786) [Link] And the FAT file system used in the memory cards and the USB memory stickswhich guarantees that now and then you get corrupted file system...
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