Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751008AbWAUHWU (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Jan 2006 02:22:20 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751033AbWAUHWT (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Jan 2006 02:22:19 -0500 Received: from free.wgops.com ([69.51.116.66]:61713 "EHLO shell.wgops.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751007AbWAUHWT (ORCPT ); Sat, 21 Jan 2006 02:22:19 -0500 Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 00:22:03 -0700 From: Michael Loftis To: Matthew Frost Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, James Courtier-Dutton Subject: Re: Development tree, PLEASE? Message-ID: <1FA093EB58B02DE48E424157@dhcp-2-206.wgops.com> In-Reply-To: <20060121031958.98570.qmail@web81905.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060121031958.98570.qmail@web81905.mail.mud.yahoo.com> X-Mailer: Mulberry/4.0.4 (Mac OS X) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact support@wgops.com X-MailScanner: WGOPS clean X-MailScanner-From: mloftis@wgops.com Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 3234 Lines: 62 --On January 20, 2006 7:19:58 PM -0800 Matthew Frost wrote: > > > --- Matthew Frost wrote: > >> No. Wrong. If there're a whole grab bag, as you say, then you should >> post each, as a separate issue, possibly with consistent proposals for >> fixing them. Follow protocol. Posting a "The Kernel Is Falling" email >> gets people riled up, makes you look foolish, and gets nothing fixed. >> Noise. Send signal. We'll wait. > > Be it noted that you have clarified, and that the issue involves ARM and > trying to juggle solutions that have simpler alternatives; I just didn't > look low enough in the thread first. My comments are superfluous at this > point. The thread in part diverged into three separate discussions more or less. I still have a big problem with how the development of the kernel is being done now, with a total lack of a stable branch. Stable in my mind also means not a moving target for developers, nor maintainers. Try maintaining a lot of very demanding applications that must run right so changes must always be fully tested before rolling out. It makes it nearly impossible to do that when the kernel has no stable branch that's mostly bug fixes, instead any time a bug is discovered a full process must be started to make sure no new bugs in all the new code features, etc, that became present during the interim are not found. It makes maintenance a real nightmare for atleast one environment in which I maintain production systems, and also makes it rather a bit more difficult in others too since changes must be vetted. Not necessarily *all* of them, but when there's lots of changes it's hard to track whats 'interesting' and what doesn't affect one. If there was/is a stable tree then when bugfixes come they are applied there, and one can upgrade along that tree with much less concern about things changing underfoot. That's my root problem. The devfs stuff is just ancillary and came about as examples of where I've been backed into a no win situation. Yes, I know it was and is deprecated, fact is I didn't write all of the code that is the problem, and some of it I don't even have access to either. Yes some of it is maintained by the distro, some by third parties, some by me. But they're all being broken because we either throw out or try to return systems with these newer chipsets, or start forking and maintaining separate kernel trees. Don't get me wrong, I understand the reasons, and I apologize for being so late to the party. Over on my end I have to make a decision as to if I have the time to try to...promote/lead some sort of effort along these lines so that we can all benefit instead of just those willing to use and install RedHat or SuSE or Debian or Ubuntu or whatever distro. I think this has gotten to beating a dead horse severely now, that may have already been dead when I walked into the room, and for that I apologize. - 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/