Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
plus.google.com
Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
1–10 of 70 posts
Re: Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
#2If anyone happens to be hip hop-challenged enough to not get the wording of the first choice, it's a reference to the song "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Got_Back). That made me smile. :)
Re: Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
#3This is one big bikeshedding.
Re: Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
#4By his own admission, the first two numbers mean nothing. Kernel releases happen on a roughly regular schedule. Date-based versioning is clearly the correct answer and I don't know why it's never even discussed.
Re: Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
#5Just adopt semver. Stop romanticizing a version number. Give big releases a flowery names if that's important to you. Leave the version number as something with specific meaning.
Re: Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
#6This is one big bikeshedding.
Absolutely. The best comment among the first few pages in that thread is this: "Really depends how many interviews you feel like doing :)"
Re: Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
#7Just adopt semver. Stop romanticizing a version number. Give big releases a flowery names if that's important to you. Leave the version number as something with specific meaning.
Linux actually has/had flowery names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_kernel_names
Re: Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
#8Just adopt semver. Stop romanticizing a version number. Give big releases a flowery names if that's important to you. Leave the version number as something with specific meaning.
Not sure whether semver makes sense at the kernel level. E.g. I was under the impression that maintaining drivers outside the kernel was a fool's errand because the interface keeps changing.
Re: Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
#9By his own admission, the first two numbers mean nothing. Kernel releases happen on a roughly regular schedule. Date-based versioning is clearly the correct answer and I don't know why it's never even discussed.
Linux people have a natural, inbuilt fear, of everything BSD related. Date based releases are evil!
That's slightly a joke, but I think in reality the development model that Linus and the other maintainers have created are feature based more than timeline based. As a developer I would enjoy a date based release schedule. I don't follow HEAD closely anymore but it would be easier to keep up the general view I try to keep.
BTW; In a way the distributions already do a date based release. RHEL 6. RHEL6.1, RHEL6.2, etc.
Re: Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
#10By his own admission, the first two numbers mean nothing. Kernel releases happen on a roughly regular schedule. Date-based versioning is clearly the correct answer and I don't know why it's never even discussed.
If you mean having something like "2015.01.13", it wouldn't look nice if stability-oriented distributions were forced to be seen as shipping "last year's kernel". It also looks stupid to patch a kernel you know is NN months old, even though you know it's the one you need to patch for reason XYZ.
If you mean bumping the major release number every N years, then you'd have people complaining when a "major" release inevitably ships only minimal improvements.
I think feature-based is still the way to go, maybe there should be a regular discussion on what is "big enough" to grant a bump, done roughly every two or three years.