Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262517AbVCCVYm (ORCPT ); Thu, 3 Mar 2005 16:24:42 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262159AbVCCVPY (ORCPT ); Thu, 3 Mar 2005 16:15:24 -0500 Received: from parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk ([195.92.249.252]:44461 "EHLO parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262398AbVCCVHc (ORCPT ); Thu, 3 Mar 2005 16:07:32 -0500 Message-ID: <42277C81.4010302@pobox.com> Date: Thu, 03 Mar 2005 16:07:13 -0500 From: Jeff Garzik User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040922 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: tglx@linutronix.de CC: Linus Torvalds , Adrian Bunk , Greg KH , "David S. Miller" , Andrew Morton , LKML Subject: Re: RFD: Kernel release numbering References: <42268749.4010504@pobox.com> <20050302200214.3e4f0015.davem@davemloft.net> <42268F93.6060504@pobox.com> <4226969E.5020101@pobox.com> <20050302205826.523b9144.davem@davemloft.net> <4226C235.1070609@pobox.com> <20050303080459.GA29235@kroah.com> <4226CA7E.4090905@pobox.com> <20050303170808.GG4608@stusta.de> <1109877336.4032.47.camel@tglx.tec.linutronix.de> <42276AF5.3080603@pobox.com> <1109882043.4032.79.camel@tglx.tec.linutronix.de> In-Reply-To: <1109882043.4032.79.camel@tglx.tec.linutronix.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1096 Lines: 33 As a further elaboration... The problem with the current 2.6-rc setup is a _human_ _communications_ problem. Users have been trained in a metaphor that is applied uniformly across all software projects that use the metaphor: test release: a useful merge/testing point release candidate: bugfixes only, test test test Linux does it differently. It's hard enough to get users to test... now we have raised the barrier even higher by abusing a common metaphor. A metaphor that is used _succesfully_ elsewhere to get users to test. "release candidate" is a promise to users that the current tree is close to what the release will look like, and only major fixes will appear between -rc and -final. We broke that promise. In human interface terms, this is like redefining the "garbage can" icon to mean "save your work." ;-) Jeff - 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/