Linux creator Linus Torvalds announced the 2.6.17-rc1 kernel saying, "it's two weeks since 2.6.16, and the merge window is closed." The referenced merge window has been part of the Linux kernel development model since the 2005 Linux Kernel Developer's Summit when it was decided that all major changes need to be merged within two weeks of a major release, devoting the rest of the development cycle to fixing bugs [story].

As for the latest release, Linus noted, "as usual, the -rc1 patch is pretty damn large, and even the ShortLog is too big to pass the linux-kernel mailing list posting size limits, but my gut feel is that a large portion of that ends up being things like new drivers, and a lot of it is less scary than the early 2.6.16 changes, for example." He went on to list some of the highlights:

"The most notable change here might be the merged support for Sun's Niagara architecture, but there's a lot of other stuff going on too: DVB re-organizations, nfs/knfsd updates, x86-64/parisc/mips/powerpc updates, ALSA, SCSI, Infiniband.. At the same time, a there's also a fair amount of just cleanups (BUG_ON conversion, semaphore->mutex conversions, bitops cleanups etc). "

From: Linus Torvalds [email blocked]
To: Linux Kernel Mailing List [email blocked]
Subject: Linux 2.6.17-rc1
Date:	Sun, 2 Apr 2006 20:47:06 -0700 (PDT)


Ok, 
 it's two weeks since 2.6.16, and the merge window is closed.

As usual, the -rc1 patch is pretty damn large, and even the ShortLog is 
too big to pass the linux-kernel mailing list posting size limits, but my 
gut feel is that a large portion of that ends up being things like new 
drivers, and a lot of it is less scary than the early 2.6.16 changes, for 
example.

Of course, my gut feel is usually wrong.

The most notable change here might be the merged support for Sun's Niagara 
architecture, but there's a lot of other stuff going on too: DVB 
re-organizations, nfs/knfsd updates, x86-64/parisc/mips/powerpc updates, 
ALSA, SCSI, Infiniband.. 

At the same time, a there's also a fair amount of just cleanups (BUG_ON 
conversion, semaphore->mutex conversions, bitops cleanups etc). 

Go wild. As usual, if you're a git user, the way to see what has changed 
is

	git log v2.6.16..v2.6.17-rc1 | git-shortlog | less

and if you're interested in just a particular sub-area, give it as a 
restriction to "git log" (ie you can do "git log v2.6.16.. drivers/net/ |.." 
to see just changes that affected network drivers).

For the rest of you, there's the tar-balls, patches, and full ChangeLog.

		Linus

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