Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261336AbVABVYg (ORCPT ); Sun, 2 Jan 2005 16:24:36 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261237AbVABVYg (ORCPT ); Sun, 2 Jan 2005 16:24:36 -0500 Received: from pastinakel.tue.nl ([131.155.2.7]:772 "EHLO pastinakel.tue.nl") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261336AbVABVYc (ORCPT ); Sun, 2 Jan 2005 16:24:32 -0500 Date: Sun, 2 Jan 2005 22:24:27 +0100 From: Andries Brouwer To: William Lee Irwin III Cc: Maciej Soltysiak , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: starting with 2.7 Message-ID: <20050102212427.GG2818@pclin040.win.tue.nl> References: <1697129508.20050102210332@dns.toxicfilms.tv> <20050102203615.GL29332@holomorphy.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20050102203615.GL29332@holomorphy.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2i X-Spam-DCC: SINECTIS: pastinakel.tue.nl 1114; Body=1 Fuz1=1 Fuz2=1 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1378 Lines: 32 On Sun, Jan 02, 2005 at 12:36:15PM -0800, William Lee Irwin III wrote: > There is a standard. Breaking things and hoping someone cleans up > later doesn't work. So it has to be stable all the time anyway, and > this is one of the observations upon which the "2.6 forever" theme is > based. You are an optimist. I think reality is different. You change some stuff. The bad mistakes are discovered very soon. Some subtler things or some things that occur only in special configurations or under special conditions or just with very low probability may not be noticed until much later. So, your changes have a wake behind them that is wide the first few days and becomes thinner and thinner over time. Nontrivial changes may have bugs discovered after two or three years. If a kernel is set apart and called "stable", then it is not, but it will become more and more stable over time, until after two or three years only very few unknown problems are encountered. If you come with a new kernel every month, then you get the stability that the "stable" kernel has after less than a month, which is not particularly stable. Andries - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/