linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] Kernel version numbering scheme change

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Date:	Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:34:32 -0700 (PDT)
From:	david@...g.hm
To:	Thorsten Leemhuis <thl@...heise.de>
cc:	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] Kernel version numbering scheme change

On Thu, 16 Oct 2008, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:

> On 16.10.2008 02:25, Greg KH wrote:
>> You brought this topic up a few months ago, and passed it off as
>> something we would discuss at the kernel summit.  But that never
>> happened, so I figured I'd bring it up again here.
>> 
>> So, as someone who constantly is dealing with kernel version numbers all
>> the time with the -stable trees, our current numbering scheme is a pain
>> a times.  How about this proposal instead?
>> 
>> We number the kernel based on the year, and the numbers of releases we
>> have done this year:
>> 	YEAR.NUMBER.MINOR_RELEASE
>> 
>> For example, the first release in 2009 would be called:
>> 	2009.0.0
>> The second:
>> 	2009.1.0
>> [...]
>
> That afaics has one minor downside: You don't know in advance how the next 
> kernel is going to be called. Example: the kernel that is currently developed 
> could become 2008.4 (the fifth kernel in 2008) if this development cycle in 
> the end is one of the quicker ones and gets finished this year. But if 
> everything is a bit slower then it might become 2009.0 (the first one in 
> 2009).
>
> Hence people that write a lot of articles about things that happen in linux 
> land (like LWN.net or I do) would be forced to write sentences like "[...]the 
> kernel that will become 2008.3 or 2009.0 will have feature foo that works 
> like this[...]". That will get really confusing if you read those articles 
> half a year later -- especially if that kernel became 2008.3 in the end, 
> because foo in 2009.0 might already look quite different again...

pick a name when the merge window opens

either based on when the merge window opens, or when it's expected to be 
released (and accept that you may have a 2008.3 released in early 2009, or 
a 2009.1 released in december 2008)

David Lang
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