2.6.0-test9 user [LWN.net]

2.6.0-test9 user

Posted Nov 20, 2003 19:51 UTC (Thu) by Ross (subscriber, #4065)
In reply to: 2.6.0-test9 user by keithw
Parent article: 2.6 patch policy

The problem with opening a new dev branch right away is that
the stable and development kernels will diverge. This means
that fixes in the development branch might not make it into
the stable branch and vice versa. This happened in 2.4. In
fact there are fixes in 2.4 which are still not in 2.6.0-test
because of that.

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2.6.0-test9 user

Posted Dec 2, 2003 2:34 UTC (Tue) by leonbrooks (guest, #1494) [Link]

You have to balance that against the fixes which didn't happen anywhere because the developers didn't bother retrying when they were rejected during the prerelease bottleneck, and against the patches which hit the kernel hard because they developed in isolation and arrived in big chunks when contribution was opened up again instead of developing in manageable nibbles over time.

Also, I'm guessing that there are enough people working on the kernel now, and enough bodies practiced at kernel lieutenancy that we can well afford to open 2.7 the instant a 2.6.0-test1 is released.