From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754834AbXDZQke (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:40:34 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754835AbXDZQke (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:40:34 -0400 Received: from smtp1.linux-foundation.org ([65.172.181.25]:47430 "EHLO smtp1.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754834AbXDZQkd (ORCPT ); Thu, 26 Apr 2007 12:40:33 -0400 Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 09:40:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Linus Torvalds To: Jan Engelhardt cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: Linux 2.6.21 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, 26 Apr 2007, Jan Engelhardt wrote: > > I really appreciate the lot of -rcs, especially if there are so many > intrusive changes/regressions. Like Andrew, I have a feeling that it > gets buggier, but at least, it seems to be made up every ... two > releases. I wouldn't say that, but yes, there is at least *some* tendency to not merge scary stuff after a painful release. For example, I can certainly say that after 2.6.21, I'm likely to be very unhappy merging something that isn't "obviously safe". I knew the timer changes were potentially painful, I just hadn't realized just *how* painful they would be (we had some SATA/IDE changes too, of course, it's not all just about the timers, those just ended up being more noticeable to me than some of the other things were). > About 2.6.21 - will see, rc has been to my liking. I actually hope that 2.6.21 isn't even all that bad, despite all the worries about it. And I may be complaining about the problems the timers caused, but it was definitely something that was not only worth it, it was overdue - and those NO_HZ issues had been brewing literally for years. So considering issues like that, I think we're actually doing fairly well. One of the bigger issues is that I think -mm (and I'm pretty sure Andrew will agree with me on this) has really had a rather spotty history. It's been unstable enough at times that I suspect people have largely stopped testing it, with just the most die-hard testers running -mm. So -mm is still very useful just because *Andrew* tests it, and finds all kinds of issues with it, but I literally suspect that Andrew himself is personally a big part of that, which is kind of wasteful - we should be able to spread out the pain more. Andrew is also too damn polite when something goes wrong ;) So we should have somebody like Christoph running -mm, and when things break, we'll just sic Christoph on whoever broke it, and teach people proper fear and respect! As it is, I think people tend to send things to -mm a bit *too* eagerly, because there is no downside - Andrew is a "cheap date" testing-wise, and always puts out ;) Linus