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Linus Torvalds' poll about “big versions” in kernel releases
- unwind 12y agoIf 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Got_Back). That made me smile. :)
- kasabali 12y agoThis is one big bikeshedding.
- nhaehnle 12y agoAbsolutely. The best comment among the first few pages in that thread is this: "Really depends how many interviews you feel like doing :)"
- carlosrg 12y agoI don't think a casual poll in his Google+ page can be considered bikeshedding.
- modi123 12y agoTest
- ciupicri 12y agoYes, but it's his bike shed :-)
- coldpie 12y agoBy 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.
- mitchell_h 12y agoLinux 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.
- BuildTheRobots 12y agoI've seen Linus loose it with devs in the past for breaking backwards compatibility with kernel updates; I'd suggest this also has something to do with it -possibly more so than an inbuilt fear of BSD [1]. I'm failing to find an explanation of how the RHEL numbering scheme is date based -please could you expand? [1] As a long term linux user, I have both fear and bafflement over BSD device naming and the lack of gnu options on standard utils ;)
- mitchell_h 12y agoThe numbering scheme isn't date based, but the release schedule is. You can point at RHEL6.3 and say Released "2012-06-20"
- BuildTheRobots 12y agoNot entirely sure what you mean by release schedule. I found this[1] list which lists releases and dates, but (unless I'm being thick,) it's not like they're minor-bumping every x months, it seems to be arbitrary. And if it's arbitrary, I don't see how it matters. If I'm looking up the release date for 6.3 then I may as well look up the release date for 2.6.32...
- protomyth 12y agoWhich BSD is doing date based releases?
- Touche 12y agoJust 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.
- cremno 12y agoLinux actually has/had flowery names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_kernel_names https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_kernel_names
- philh 12y agoThat page is almost as much fun as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Culture_series http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spacecraft_in_the_Cultu... .
- pdpi 12y agoNot 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.
- Qantourisc 12y agoImo the change of such an interface warrants a version bump . They should not be doing it often anyway. As a result this will reset the minor version number once in a while.
- pothibo 12y agoThis kind of comment just show ignorance. The kernel has been around for a few decades while semver has been around for what, 3 years now? Maybe it will adopt semver at some stage. I doubt it because the API is way too complex and broad to be covered in simple x.x.x notation, think of driver updates on vendors.
- Touche 12y ago
- kogepathic 12y agoWhy has he chosen Google+ of all places to hold this vote? I wanted to vote, but no, can't do that without joining Google+ again, which I am emphatically against. Of all social media platforms to vote on, the only one more closed than Google+ would have been Facebook. Next time can we please use something like SurveyMonkey or Doodle (might not work for this) or ANYTHING but a f#$%ing social network that requires a login?
- coldpie 12y agoI think it's an informal "testing the water" type poll, not a serious discussion/decision-making platform. Google+ is harder to ballot-stuff than a trivial open polling platform.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- igorgue 12y ago"we" as in "he" was part of this community... Stop being so pedantic, you already have a login, again, somebody like Linus Torvals that changed the world doesn't need to comply to your entitlements, in other words is his survey not yours.
- 3JPLW 12y agoNote: if you click on the total number of votes above the poll, you can see the results without logging in or voting. Current results with 8,509 votes. 43% (3,687) I like big versions, and I cannot lie 57% (4,822) v4.0, 'cause I get confused easily
- andruby 12y agoAt 10,656 votes the ratio is still the same: 43% (4,627) I like big versions, and I cannot lie 57% (6,029) v4.0, 'cause I get confused easily
- jokoon 12y agoI never understand why linux distributions download updates so often. I'd prefer something monthly at the most. I can't believe there are so many critical security update that much often...
- thirsteh 12y agoYou would prefer to wait a month for a security update rather than get it as soon as possible, is what you're saying? Even when the update process is as non-tedious as Linux's?
- sp332 12y agoYou can modify your update schedule to be whatever you'd like it to be.
- igorgue 12y agoThey don't as much if you use LTS, you might be used to regular releases, and to be honest Apple updates as frequent too.
- phkahler 12y agoWhile this is not even kernel related, I'd like it to coincide with significant adoption of Wayland. It's more of a distro-level thing, but it is a major advance in the Linux world. So hold off on 4.0 until some desktops and distros are ready for that as a default.
- chli 12y agoI would suggest incrementing the major of major.minor.patch everytime a longterm release is selected.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- elfgoh 12y agoI believe that the kernel should only be upgraded to version 4 after we hit 3.142