Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 06:04:41 +0200
From: Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu>
To: Grant Coady <gcoady.lk@gmail.com>
Cc: Kasper Sandberg <lkml@metanurb.dk>,
       Marcelo Tosatti <marcelo@hera.kernel.org>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: linux-2.4.33 released
Message-ID: <20060812040441.GC6666@1wt.eu>
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On Sat, Aug 12, 2006 at 12:18:23PM +1000, Grant Coady wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Aug 2006 21:09:23 +0200, Willy Tarreau <w@1wt.eu> wrote:
> 
> >Hello,
> >
> >On Fri, Aug 11, 2006 at 07:43:00PM +0200, Kasper Sandberg wrote:
> >> On Fri, 2006-08-11 at 04:18 +0000, Marcelo Tosatti wrote:
> >> > final:
> >> > 
> >> > - 2.4.33-rc3 was released as 2.4.33 with no changes.
> >> I have one suggestion for the 2.4 tree, next time a few changes is
> >> introduced, they could be put as a bugfix release, as with the 2.6
> >> branch now, so that it doesent end up taking years for a new 2.4
> >> release, and instead a point release(if any such thing happens at all)
> >
> >This has already the case with the hotfix tree since 18 months or so. A
> >hotfix release is issued when there are important fixes. Anyway, I was
> >thinking about releasing pre-releases more often. Also, you might have
> >noticed that the slowdown is more important during -rc for obvious reasons.
> 
> >To solve this problem, I intend to maintain a 'next' branch in the tree
> >which will contain the fixes that can wait for next version. It should
> >help us batch the fixes and reduce the latency between important fixes
> >and the associated release.
> 
> Perhaps time to follow the 2.6.nn-stable naming scheme?  Since you're in 
> the driver's seat now?  This may be less confusing to 2.4 series users.

The difference is that I provide hotfixes for older versions too, and if
you remember, initially all versions got a different suffix, which was
really confusing. Now at least they all get the same one. Or perhaps I
should use the 4 digit for the last version and something derived from
it for older versions, I'll have to think about it.

> You'd have an idea how popular your hotfix project has been from your 
> server download stats?  I've mostly run hotfix-latest on firewall 24/7 
> since you started the project.

It varies depending on the fixes. For instance, on hf32.6, I got 737
downloads: 69% for the latest version (2.4.32), 10% for 2.4.29, 8% for
2.4.30, 7% for 2.4.31, and 6% for 2.4.28. But it's hard to tell how
many systems run those patches, because some people might download
them just for curiosity, and others download them once an apply them
on a hundred of machines. From the feedback I got, people often use
the latest hotfix as the first patch for their own kernels (and I do
the same) so that they know they're up to date, and can add the
features they need.

Also, many people know that 2.4 is stable enough that most often,
any pre-release can be used as a hotfix.

> Cheers,
> Grant.

Cheers,
Willy

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