Re: Reviving the concept of a stable series (was Re: starting with 2.7)

["Robert W. Fuller" <orangemagicbus@sbcglobal.net>]

My 2 cents (not that anybody asked for it or I have any currency here 
since it's rare I get answers to my posts anyway....)

1.  The distributors, such as Redhat, Mandrake, etc. ought to be 
actively involved in stabilizing the kernel especially if they offer 
kernel support services.  (This isn't meant to imply that they aren't 
currently doing so.  After all, they employ a number of people who work 
on the kernel.)

2.  There is nothing to prevent the distributors from pooling their 
resources and funding a small group of developers to maintain a "stable" 
branch as their fulltime job.

3.  If progress is to be made in the development model for Linux, then 
people need to be less reactionary.  In other words, don't criticize 
changes in the development model unless you have a suggestion for 
progressing the model.

L. A. Walsh wrote:
*omitted*
> However, all that being said, there would still be the choosing of
> someone, steady and capable, of holding on to the stable release and
> being it's gate-keeper.  It seems like it would become quite a chore
> to decide what code is let into the stable version.  It's also
> considered by many to be "less" fun, not only to "manage the
> stable distro", but backport code into the previous distro. Maybe no one 
> _qualified_, wanted to manage a stable release. It takes time and 
> possibly enough time to qualify as a
> full-time job.  It takes a special person to find gainful
> employment as a vendor-neutral kernel maintainer.  The alternative is
> to try to work 2 jobs where, in programming, each job might "like"
> to have 60-80 hours of attention per week.  That's a demanding
> sacrifice as well.
> 
> It may be the case that no one at the last closed door kernel developer
> meeting wanted to undertake the care of a stable kernel.  No
> volunteers...no kernel.  There is less "wiggle room" in the average,
> mature, developer's schedule with the advent of easy outsourcing to
> cheaper labor that doesn't come from societies that breed independence
> and nurture talented, more mature, or eccentric developers that love
> spending spare cycles working on Open Source code.
> 
> Nevertheless, it would be nice to see a no-new-features, stable series
> spun off from these development kernels, maybe .4th number releases,
> like 2.6.10 also becomes a 2.6.10.0 that starts a 2.6.10.1, then 2.6.10.2,
> etc...with iteritive bug fixes to the same kernel and no new features
> in such a branch, it might become stable enough for users to have 
> confidence
> installing them on their desktop or stable machines.
*more omitted*