Help Linus decide what to call the next kernel [LWN.net]

Help Linus decide what to call the next kernel

Posted Feb 13, 2015 19:31 UTC (Fri) by bentley (subscriber, #93468)
Parent article: Help Linus decide what to call the next kernel

Since new kernel versions are released somewhat regularly, date-based versions might make sense (eg Ubuntu). We could have Linux 15.02, 15.04, etc. The only issue is that that exact numbering scheme would be easily confused with Ubuntu's.

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Help Linus decide what to call the next kernel

Posted Feb 13, 2015 20:06 UTC (Fri) by HelloWorld (guest, #56129) [Link] (2 responses)

For this to work one would have to know in which month exactly the kernel is released, which is hard as slipping release dates are far from unheard of. Otherwise you'd either have releases with a version number that doesn't actually match the release date or you'd end up with rcs whose version number doesn't match the final release's.
That said, I'm also in favour of some new, sensible versioning scheme, the current one is just silly. fwiw, I'd simply drop the 3. part and continue counting. less' version number is 471. Who cares? One doesn't run out of natural numbers.

Help Linus decide what to call the next kernel

Posted Feb 13, 2015 21:38 UTC (Fri) by proski (guest, #104) [Link] (1 responses)

It should be possible to use the date of the rc1 tag. That's what good programmers do - grab the resource when you need it. Who cares if the release date doesn't match the version. The stable series would still use the same kernel version plus serial number. So, rc1 released in March 2015 would be v15.03, the corresponding released kernel released in May 2015 would still be v15.03, the stable series would be v15.03.1, v15.03.2 etc even if they are released in August 2015, January 2016 etc.

Help Linus decide what to call the next kernel

Posted Feb 14, 2015 16:06 UTC (Sat) by jengelh (subscriber, #33263) [Link]

The poll gave exactly two options, specifically because the mind was already made up up to that point. Throwing in third, fourth options won't help, save the breath.

Help Linus decide what to call the next kernel

Posted Feb 13, 2015 21:13 UTC (Fri) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]

Valdis Kletnieks
+Brandon Price So Linux 15.2 for this month. For the second version in the same month, 15.2.1, and so on

That doesn't actually work. Look how stable kernel numbers work - 3.14.33 wasn't the 33rd release in that month, and came out after 3.15 through 3.18.