Umm. And your suggestion is what? Wait until -rc1, when non-developers
(the kinds of people who are supposed to *not* be competent enough) come
along, and report the problem?
That's explicitly what I do *not* want to happen.
If we knew something was wrong before the -rc1 release, all the better: we
can avoid havign that bug in -rc1, and the people who test it will tell us
about the problems we did *not* know about.
In contrast, if we leave a known bug in, that will just mean that other
problems won't be found either, because people get hung up on the known
bug.
Regressions should be fixed early and often. Otherwise there's no point in
making the code available early and often in the first place.
A regression is basically MUCH WORSE than just about any possible bug that
patch could have fixed, and I want people to really think that way.
The rule for *everybody* should be:
"Regressions get fixed immediately"
with no ifs, buts or maybes. In fact, it would be even better if the kinds
of patches that cause regressions wouldn't hit my tree at all, but once
they have hit it, and once they've been identified, they get reverted.
Linus
-
