It was recently asked on the Linux Kernel Mailing List why the 2.6.0 kernel [forum] was planned for release so soon, when there are still a number of known issues [story] still needing to be fixed. Larry McVoy [interview] replied, "The 'stable' series of the kernel is never really stable for a while. A better way to think of it is as 'that place where things become stable by refusing to take any new changes except bug fixes'." He goes on to explain:

"The news media hasn't picked up on this yet, they seem to think that 2.6.0 is something that will be useful. It won't be, there will be a period of months during which things stablize and then you'll see the distros pick up the release."

From: Tim Cambrant [email blocked]
To: Linux Kernel Mailing List [email blocked]
Subject: Too soon for stable release?
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 18:49:16 +0100

I am sorry if this offends someone or if I'm totally on the wrong track
here, but it seems odd to actually call the Beaver On Detox "stable",
considering the amount of misc. problems people have been having the
last week with -test11. Since you are in schedule, a -test12 with the
bugs fixed might be a better idea, don't you think?

Since I'm not a coder, and havn't had any previous kernel development
experince, I might not be the one to suggest such a thing, but I really
don't see a reason to be hasty with the release, and end up with a
whole bunch of users having problems.

The weeks Linus suggested we would wait before releasing the final
2.6.0-kernel could be a perfect time to implement the fixes that would
be needed. Test11 is working perfectly for me, but you can clearly see
that many people are having problems.

-- 
Tim Cambrant [email blocked] 
GPG KeyID 0x59518702
Fingerprint: 14FE 03AE C2D1 072A 87D0  BC4D FA9E 02D8 5951 8702



From: Larry McVoy [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Too soon for stable release?
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 09:01:04 -0800

On Sat, Nov 29, 2003 at 06:49:16PM +0100, Tim Cambrant wrote:
> I am sorry if this offends someone or if I'm totally on the wrong track
> here, but it seems odd to actually call the Beaver On Detox "stable",
> considering the amount of misc. problems people have been having the
> last week with -test11. 

The "stable" series of the kernel is never really stable for a while. 
A better way to think of it is as "that place where things become stable
by refusing to take any new changes except bug fixes".  

The news media hasn't picked up on this yet, they seem to think that
2.6.0 is something that will be useful.  It won't be, there will be a
period of months during which things stablize and then you'll see the
distros pick up the release.  I don't remember where it was exactly
(2.4.18?) but Red Hat waited quite a while before switching to 2.4
from 2.2.  This is normal and it works out quite well in practice.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm



From: Russell King [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Too soon for stable release?
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 17:11:11 +0000

On Sat, Nov 29, 2003 at 09:01:04AM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote:
> The news media hasn't picked up on this yet, they seem to think that
> 2.6.0 is something that will be useful.  It won't be, there will be a
> period of months during which things stablize and then you'll see the
> distros pick up the release.  I don't remember where it was exactly
> (2.4.18?) but Red Hat waited quite a while before switching to 2.4
> from 2.2.  This is normal and it works out quite well in practice.

Red Hat did a 2.4.2 release which was 2.4.2 + a lot of stability changes.
IIRC, RH7.x was based on 2.4.7, with updates to 2.4.9, 2.4.18 and finally
2.4.20-based kernels.  However, I also seem to remember each of these had
a fair number of patches applied.

I'm sure Arjan will correct me if I got the above wrong.

-- 
Russell King
 Linux kernel    2.6 ARM Linux   - http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/
 maintainer of:  2.6 PCMCIA      - http://pcmcia.arm.linux.org.uk/
                 2.6 Serial core



From: Arjan van de Ven [email blocked]
Subject: Re: Too soon for stable release?
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 18:42:48 +0100

On Sat, 2003-11-29 at 18:11, Russell King wrote:
> Red Hat did a 2.4.2 release which was 2.4.2 + a lot of stability changes.

which was basically a 2.4.4-pre 

> IIRC, RH7.2 was based on 2.4.7,

2.4.7 lived for half a day but the VM of 2.4.7 was so bad we had to go
to 2.4.9 immediately..

• Archive of above thread
• KernelTrap interview with Larry McVoy
• KernelTrap interview with Russell King