Linux 3.0-rc1 is here

NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. Sure, we have the usual two thirds driver changes, and a lot of random fixes, but the point is that 3.0 is just about renumbering, we are very much not doing a KDE-4 or a Gnome-3 here. No breakage, no special scary new features, nothing at all like that. We've been doing time-based releases for many years now, this is in no way about features. If you want an excuse for the renumbering, you really should look at the time-based one ("20 years") instead.”

by Linus Torvalds

source: ttp://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1147415

spicyj• 15 years ago

Source: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1147415

hasenj2• 15 years ago

I didn't know you were quoting Linus, you should make it more obvious.

riobard2• 15 years ago

added the name :)

hasenj2• 15 years ago

It's funny and upsetting how I get more upvotes for comments like these than for things I actually put some thought into.

kia• 15 years ago

It would break many of the programs which rely on 2.6.x naming scheme. Linus always was on the side of not breaking things if they do work. It seems that he changed his views for this particular case.

fragsworth2• 15 years ago

He's also a huge proponent of "Don't be stupid". I think that applies to developers who did what you mentioned.

adambyrtek• 15 years ago

"Linux 3.0-rc1... except there are various scripts that really know that there are three numbers, so it calls itself "3.0.0-rc1".

Hopefully by the time the final 3.0 is out, we'll have that extra zero all figured out."

Source: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6...

derleth• 15 years ago

Ultimately, you get the worst you're willing to put up with. When the Windows dev team bends over backwards to keep buggy applications working, they signal that those bugs are acceptable and turn them into the accepted way to develop Windows application software.

When Torvalds bumps the major version number with little warning, he signals that anything which depends on it always being '2.x.x' or, worse, '2.6.x', is not acceptable and will not be tolerated.

I've lived in both worlds. I prefer Linux. I'm not alone.

timf• 15 years ago

Linus' email is more interesting than the commit: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1147415

armored• 15 years ago

Although that's not very interesting either. Linus: "What's new?" Linus: "Nothing."

thaumaturgy2• 15 years ago

Yeah, nice. "Major version? Minor version? Revision? What're those? I like round numbers."

Why not just go to a basic increment (Linux 3, 4, 5, 6, ...), or a date-based (Linux 2011! Now with new ribbon interface!) numbering instead?

...eh. I dunno why this bothers me so much.

aclark• 15 years ago

I know they invented git, but that website sure is fugly. Time to switch to github, perhaps :-).

marchdown• 15 years ago

There is a nice open-source (which github is not) web front-end for git repos, http://www.gitalist.com/, and would you believe it, even they use git-web on their website.

augustl2• 15 years ago

Unfortunately, http://example.gitalist.com/ doesn't load any content whatsoever in my browser (Google Chrome with JavaScript disabled/whitelisted). Just a white page. And I have a hunch browsing with JavaScript off is more common for kernel devs than, say, GitHub users.

sliverstorm2• 15 years ago

It may be fugly, but it's also functional

It probably works in text based browsers too

stephen_g• 15 years ago

Why do you care what it looks like? It's whether it works well that is really important for a tool like this (that pretty much only the devs are going to use).

It's not actually great on that front either though, but the point still stands. I prefer cgit[1] myself (as it's a lot more usable). It's quite mature and used by Freedesktop [2] and Gnome [3]. If people are really worried by how it looks you can easily add your own header, footer, and alter the CSS.

I hadn't seen Gitalist (that marchdown posted) though. Looks pretty good but I wasn't that impressed by the usability of the demo though. But that will probably improve in time.

1. http://hjemli.net/git/cgit/ 2. http://cgit.freedesktop.org/ 3. http://git.gnome.org/browse/

jordan0day2• 15 years ago

One the one hand, the "benevolent dictator" model has shown itself to work pretty well for Linux, compared to some major failings of the "committee" model on other projects. On the other hand, does anyone think the fact that "major" changes can be done by one person who is "just going all alpha-male" will potentially spook people? I mean, I doubt too many people here on hn have a problem with Linus' personality. I imagine most of us appreciate his sense of humor and respect him as a penultimate hacker... I'm just thinking about starched-shirt types who call the shots in big businesses -- can you imagine being an IT manager and trying to explain to your boss that after 15 years there's a new major version of the Linux kernel because "well the head guy got tired of calling it version 2."

Edit: Penultimate apparently doesn't mean what I thought it meant, so, what I meant was "...respect him as a very good hacker...".

sliverstorm2• 15 years ago

It's free, it's open source. If you've got a problem with how Linus does things, you can always fork it.

steevdave• 15 years ago

I'm not entirely sure why you would... My boss doesn't know what kernel version we run, all he cares is that it works.

esrauch• 15 years ago

You think linus is the second best hacker?

bryansum• 15 years ago

pe·nul·ti·mate/peˈnəltəmit/

Adjective: Last but one in a series of things; second last: "the penultimate chapter of the book".

jordan0day2• 15 years ago

It appears my understanding of that word was faulty. I always thought it meant something along the lines of first-rate, I didn't realize it had such a specific meaning. TIL, I suppose.

perlgeek• 15 years ago

I don't think the 3.0 release is "just going all alpha-male" - I think it reflects the maturity of the linux kernel, and could have done some years ago with good conscience too.

That said, his Google Tech Talk on git, which turned into a rant against SVN/CVS users did lower my respect for his personal skills.

rimantas• 15 years ago

My first reaction to that talk was "wtf…". Then I tried git. And then I started to think that he might been right.

jedbrown• 15 years ago

Lots of commercial software has version numbers assigned for marketing reasons and largely independent of technical changes.

william42• 15 years ago

For example, Windows 7 is internally Windows NT 6.2.

cookiecaper2• 15 years ago

See Slackware's jump from version 4 to version 7, or more recently, Mozilla's reconfiguration of its versioning system to make the numbers more closely match Chrome and IE version numbers (where v11 and v9 are the current stable releases respectively -- Mozilla is on a measly v4). This doesn't just occur in commercial software.

autalpha• 15 years ago

I don't know why, but I always get a good chuckle or two from reading or watching Linus' materials.

blackhole• 15 years ago

http://www.xkcd.com/178/

icco• 15 years ago

My favorite part is the commit message on the tag: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6...

"Version numbers? We can increment them!" -- Linus Torvalds

FlowerPower• 15 years ago

Its name was Sneaky Weasel.

haruka• 15 years ago

Seems a bit strange to me. A major version increment is supposed to announce "this is significantly different and possibly incompatible".

But now it doesn't mean that. It means 20 years.

There are extremely good reasons not to increment the major version. For instance tools which take the conservative approach of checking for 2.6 will all be broken. Those tools correctly elected not to risk wrong behavior resulting from a major version change.

When you add together the time it takes to compensate for this change for all maintainers everywhere (tools developers, distro developers, everyone), surely it will run into the hundreds of hours, perhaps thousands. All for, functionally, nothing. And sorry for calling you Shirley.

Seems to be an objectively bad move. Oh well. This needless-on-purpose change will cause resentment, but after time it will dissipate.

taken11• 15 years ago

checking for 2.6 no longer means much, 2.6.0 and a current 2.6.39 have so many changes that just checking for 2.6 is not enough anymore. that was one of the reasons for the new version.

fragsworth2• 15 years ago

You're saying there are tools which opt to break entirely, instead of work with the chance of bugs, if your kernel version number got too high?

What tools actually do this?

ori_b• 15 years ago

In theory, the Linux kernel has been binary stable since version 1.0 -- if it worked on an old version, it will work on a new one.

In practice, due to the vast number of configuration options, it's not entirely binary stable even across different people compiling the same code. With work, you can probably make things compatible, but it doesn't come for free.

tybris• 15 years ago

  -VERSION = 2
  -PATCHLEVEL = 6
  -SUBLEVEL = 39
  -EXTRAVERSION =
  -NAME = Flesh-Eating Bats with Fangs
  +VERSION = 3
  +PATCHLEVEL = 0
  +SUBLEVEL = 0
  +EXTRAVERSION = -rc1
  +NAME = Sneaky Weasel

vacri• 15 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_kernel_names

Some interesting version names in there. I find 2.6.22-rc3 particularly intruiging...

tzury2• 15 years ago

Despite all criticism and cynicism all over the Linux communities about the numbering and all that stuff, for me, every release of the Kernel (as well as any other major / dominant open source platform / project) is a reason for celebration.

It simply means, openness and freedom won the software/internet game. The fact there are people out there, spend the best of their times, contributing code and manuals docs, debugging and filing bugs, etc. etc. Is a sign that RMS and alike were not _"a bunch of hippies who likes to code for free"_ or even worst, a bunch of communists as some used to say at the beginning of Linux breakthrough.

From my own personal experience, it also means, the more open you will be, the more open software you will rely on, the more money you will make by the end of the day.

Thank you Linus, and all kernel contributors, for the great tools and platform you provided us for FREE!

forensic3• 15 years ago

> It simply means, openness and freedom won the software/internet game.

Except... it didn't. The far majority of programmers still write closed source non-free code. The far majority of software is still closed source and non-free. The far majority of humans browse non-free websites on non-free web browsers running on non-free operating systems.

arecibodrake2• 15 years ago

Oh, I don't think he was saying that wasn't the case. I believe what he meant (perhaps I am projecting here) that because it continues to exist, and exist successfully, the idea of free software wins.

The mere continued existence of free software/open source validates the ideology behind it.

As a libertarian/dyed in the wool capitalist, I love the success myself.

tzury2• 15 years ago

Friend, I am afraid you have missed my point. What I meant was that open source have change the software world. Nothing is the same anymore, and in my opinion, the "cloud-revolution" we are observing today has a lot to do with open/free software.

It might be true that most browsers are closed source running on top of closed source operating systems, but that is just one half of the picture. the other half tells a story of most web traffic, especially on most popular ones, is generated by open platform.

Vast majority of programmers are writing closed source. yet they do not affect the market as those who write open source.

BruceForth• 15 years ago

So, when will Linus be released from mental institution? [0]

http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/3/2/247

Linux 3.0-rc1 is here

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