In <[🔎] 4D13308C.2060708@affinityvision.com.au>, Andrew McGlashan wrote: >Stan Hoeppner wrote: >> Both the Linux kernel and Postfix follow the same trend. Both have been >> on major revision 2 for---ever now. Considering the way the versioning >> is done on both Linux and Postfix, there will never be a 3.x release of >> either, as the core architecture will never undergo another major >> change. For either to do so would require a redefinition of "major" >> change. > >I think you will find that the kernel will advance .... as I understand >it, the 2.6 is the current "normal" branch and 2.7 is development, once >2.7 makes it to 2.8, then 2.9 will be dev ..... 3.0 / 3.1 and so on. (One of) The old way(s) was to use x.odd as development versions and x.even as "stable" versions, with various meanings for stable. Last I checked, that has gone away though. Things that are normally considered "major" changes in software, like changes in ABI or other backward compatibility issues e.g., are no longer done on the 2.7 branch. Instead, they are simply done on the 2.6.x branch and downstream is expected to put up with it. Instead of stable versions being part of the release planning, a version is usually declared stable sometime after it's release when it's relatively clear there are few major bugs and someone steps up to do the minor maintenance work. If all Free Software was maintained in such a way, it would be much more difficult (maybe impossible) for Debian to exist in it's current form as new packages entering Sid would causes an order of magnitude more cascading breakages, and running a mixed system would be a recipe for disaster. The kernel is a bit of a special case though AND the kernel developers are very aware of the havoc poor maintenance on their part could cause and have their own socio-technical solutions that have worked very well at least since 2.6.16. >It's just that we have lived with 2.2, 2.4 and now 2.6 kernels for so >long it doesn't seem to change often ... but it will in time, I'm sure. I don't think they will actually change the "2.6" moniker to "2.7" / "2.8" / "3.0" in the future. I think it is more likely that they will just drop it from standard usage, so that the kernel I am currently running on this system will simply be "Linux 32.5". -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. bss@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_)) ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' http://iguanasuicide.net/ \_/
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