Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752069AbYJSDfy (ORCPT ); Sat, 18 Oct 2008 23:35:54 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751024AbYJSDfq (ORCPT ); Sat, 18 Oct 2008 23:35:46 -0400 Received: from 1wt.eu ([62.212.114.60]:4851 "EHLO 1wt.eu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750954AbYJSDfp (ORCPT ); Sat, 18 Oct 2008 23:35:45 -0400 Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 05:35:21 +0200 From: Willy Tarreau To: Jiri Kosina Cc: Greg KH , Alan Cox , Steven Noonan , Adrian Bunk , Linus Torvalds , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [RFC] Kernel version numbering scheme change Message-ID: <20081019033521.GA3700@1wt.eu> References: <20081016164602.GA22554@cs181140183.pp.htv.fi> <20081017034717.GA28188@kroah.com> <20081017064751.GE22554@cs181140183.pp.htv.fi> <20081017075544.GB4850@kroah.com> <20081017174657.GH2221@kroah.com> <20081017204723.15114eaa@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <20081017214409.GB3585@kroah.com> <20081018084504.GQ24654@1wt.eu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2742 Lines: 58 On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 01:17:19AM +0200, Jiri Kosina wrote: > On Sat, 18 Oct 2008, Willy Tarreau wrote: > > > confusion between 2.4.37 and 2.6.27. I have already tagged kernels with > > wrong versions, having to fix by hand afterwards. It's really cumbersome > > some times. > > But this is only because you are maintaining a source code that is several > years old, right? It has nothing to do with age, but with the number of digits. Having 4 series of digits is not easy, especially when some of them are two-digits large. 2.6.26.25-rc1 and 2.6.25.26-rc1 are obviously confusing and not old (not even released). > Would maintaining a series numbered 2002.x.y make your > situation a lot better? Do you think you'd never make typo '2002 instead > of 2006' any more? Yes I probably would, and I already said I would not like such a numbering which is even worse IMHO. I'm for small number of digits, X.Y[.Z] with both X and Y < 10, and Z the stable release. In 22 years, X will go to 10 which is still not a problem. > Or how would you distingiush the kernel tree you are maintaing from the > one Linus is maintaining? Another reason why I don't like dates. It makes forked versions more confusing. Assuming that in 10 years we get 40 versions further, we might be at version 6.8 and maybe I would have switched to maintain "old" version 4.2. There is no confusion here. BTW, speaking about dates, I noticed that others have experimented with dates and finally changed their mind. Even microsoft. Remember windows 3.1/3.11 ? In parallel, you had NT 3.5. After that you got windows 95 (year of predicted release), then 98 (idem). In parallel, NT went to 4.0. Then they merged all of them into windows 2000, dropping the versions. Then they started inventing stupid names like ME, Xp, Vista, ... and now they're talking about windows 7, which should take its version from the kernel, because the kernel has kept being versionned "normally" (no marketting involved in this area). So they might have noticed that using years makes the whole thing more complex for everyone in the long term. They get laughed at when releases are delayed, people don't really know if their seemingly old "2003" is really old or the last one, etc... Probably that using dates in packaged products such as distros based on whatever is available at the given date and meant to evolve quickly and not being supported for long is good however. It's just a snapshot at a given date and nothing more. Willy -- 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/