Linux: 2.6.14-rc1, Feature Freeze

Submitted by Jeremy
on September 13, 2005 - 7:51am

In an email titled "read my lips: no more merges", Linux creator Linus Torvalds announced that the feature freeze, part of the newly improved development process [story], is now in effect for the 2.6.14 kernel. "Ok, it's been two weeks (actually, two weeks and one day) since 2.6.13, and that means that the merge window is closed," Linus explained. "I've released a 2.6.14-rc1, and we're now all supposed to help just clean up and fix everything, and aim for a really solid 2.6.14 release." He went on to add, "be nice now, and follow the rules: put away the new toys, and instead work on making sure the stuff that got merged is all solid. Ok?"

As for what was merged, Linus noted that there was "a lot of stuff all over the place." He began by pointing out that "pretty much every architecture got some updates," including alpha, arm, x86, x86-64, ppc, ia64, mips, and sparc. There was also "an absolutely _huge_ ACPI diff, largely because of some re-indentation." Other subsystems listed as receiving updates include drm, watchdog, hwmon, i2c, infiniband, input layer, md, dvb, v4l, pci, pcmcia, scsi, usb, sound driver, and network, "people may appreciate that the most common wireless network drivers got merged - centrino support is now in the standard kernel." Finally, Linus also noted, "on the filesystem level, FUSE got merged, and ntfs and xfs got updated. In the core VFS layer, the 'struct files' thing is now handled with RCU and has less expensive locking."


From: Linus Torvalds [email blocked]
To: Linux Kernel Mailing List [email blocked]
Subject: "Read my lips: no more merges" - aka Linux 2.6.14-rc1
Date:	Mon, 12 Sep 2005 20:34:17 -0700 (PDT)


Ok, it's been two weeks (actually, two weeks and one day) since 2.6.13, 
and that means that the merge window is closed. I've released a 
2.6.14-rc1, and we're now all supposed to help just clean up and fix 
everything, and aim for a really solid 2.6.14 release.

Both the diffstat and the shortlog are so big that I can't post them on 
the kernel mailing list without getting the email killed by the size 
restrictions, so there's not a lot to say. 

alpha, arm, x86, x86-64, ppc, ia64, mips, sparc, um.. Pretty much every
architecture got some updates. And an absolutely _huge_ ACPI diff, largely 
because of some re-indentation.

drm, watchdog, hwmon, i2c, infiniband, input layer, md, dvb, v4l, network,
pci, pcmcia, scsi, usb and sound driver updates. People may appreciate
that the most common wireless network drivers got merged - centrino
support is now in the standard kernel.

On the filesystem level, FUSE got merged, and ntfs and xfs got updated. In 
the core VFS layer, the "struct files" thing is now handled with RCU and 
has less expensive locking.

And networking changes.

In other words, a lot of stuff all over the place. Be nice now, and follow 
the rules: put away the new toys, and instead work on making sure the 
stuff that got merged is all solid. Ok?

Anybody with git can do the shortlog with

	git-rev-list --no-merges --pretty=short v2.6.14-rc1 ^v2.6.13 |
		git-shortlog | less -S

which is actually pretty informative.

			Linus

Related Links:

Finally IPW2100 driver in mainline

Anonymous (not verified)
on
September 13, 2005 - 9:50am

I guess they dont include the firmware , so you still have to download it. Right?

Re: Finally IPW2100 driver in mainline

Jerome Pinot (not verified)
on
September 13, 2005 - 10:16am

Right.

You must first agree the license from Intel which forbid to redistribute the binaries with the GPL kernel.

...which sucks. How am I supp

Anonymous (not verified)
on
September 14, 2005 - 12:42pm

...which sucks. How am I supposed to download it if I have only a wireless connection at home and in order to use it I have to download firmware to make it work?! Stupid Intel...

Reiser4

Anonymous (not verified)
on
September 13, 2005 - 3:14pm

I wonder whether Linus will accept Reiser4 for 2.6.14. A filesystem is supposed to be self-contained, therefore not affecting other portions of the kernel. Me thinks there shouldn't be a deadline for merging filesystems. Then again, Reiser4 screws around with the VFS layer. la la la

Doubtful

on
September 13, 2005 - 4:45pm

It would be nice if it'd be included in 2.6.14, but chances are ~99.999% that it will have to wait for 2.6.15 - but that IS a lot sooner than I was expecting, anyway.

Most important is ...

Anonymous (not verified)
on
September 13, 2005 - 7:06pm

The codename was changed to Affluent Albatross. :-)

2.6.14-rc2 out

on
September 20, 2005 - 9:07pm

but not on kernel.org yet...
see http://linuxtoday.com/developer/2005092001526NWKNSW

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