Re: Linux 2.6.21

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.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
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