A recent lkml thread explored an interesting tangent when Jeff Garzik asked about what was to follow the 2.5 development kernel, "is it definitely to be named 2.6? Maybe it's just my impression from development speed, but it felt more like a 3.0 to me :)". Linux creator Linus Torvalds first suggested that there was no reason to skip from 2.5 to 3.0, qualifying it with, "But hey, it's just a number. I don't feel that strongly either way."

Ingo Molnar reflected on the significant improvements we've seen to the VM and the IO subsystem, going so far as to say, "I think due to these improvements if we dont call the next kernel 3.0 then probably no Linux kernel in the future will deserve a major number. In 2-4 years we'll only jump to 3.0 because there's no better number available after 2.8."

Linus agreed that if the VM is as good as it seems to be, indeed the upcoming release deserves to be called 3.0. But he also pointed out that there are many silent users who tend not to speak up until there is an official release. He asks, "people who are having VM trouble with the current 2.5.x series, please _complain_, and tell what your workload is. Don't sit silent and make us think we're good to go.. And if Ingo is right, I'll do the 3.0.x thing."

From: Linus Torvalds
Subject: Re: [PATCH-RFC] 4 of 4 - New problem logging macros, SCSI RAIDdevice driver
Date: 	Thu, 26 Sep 2002 16:07:06 -0700 (PDT)

On Thu, 26 Sep 2002, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> 
> no need to be mindful of that.
> 
> Let's get it right, rather than rush it...

Which imples that it's 2.7 material.

For 2.6.x I care about getting the drivers _working_.

The whole logging discussion with hardened drivers etc is _not_ adding
value to normal people until much much later, and it sound very much to me
like one of those patch sets that some vendors will care about deeply
because they have some big company that cares and pays them.

Those kinds of patch-sets sometimes never make it into the standard 
kernel. They have to prove their worth to real people first, and I could 
care less (but not much) about paperwork reasons.

		Linus



From: Jeff Garzik
Subject: Re: [PATCH-RFC] 4 of 4 - New problem logging macros, SCSI RAIDdevice driver
Date: 	Thu, 26 Sep 2002 22:27:59 -0400

Linus Torvalds wrote:
> For 2.6.x I care about getting the drivers _working_.

Tangent question, is it definitely to be named 2.6?

Maybe it's just my impression from development speed, but it felt more 
like a 3.0 to me :)

	Jeff



From: Linus Torvalds
Subject: Re: [PATCH-RFC] 4 of 4 - New problem logging macros, SCSI RAIDdevice driver
Date: 	Thu, 26 Sep 2002 21:45:51 -0700 (PDT)

On Thu, 26 Sep 2002, Jeff Garzik wrote:
>
> Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > For 2.6.x I care about getting the drivers _working_.
> 
> Tangent question, is it definitely to be named 2.6?

I see no real reason to call it 3.0.

The order-of-magnitude threading improvements might just come closest to
being a "new thing", but yeah, I still consider it 2.6.x. We don't have 
new architectures or other really fundamental stuff. In many ways the jump 
from 2.2 -> 2.4 was bigger than the 2.4 -> 2.6 thing will be, I suspect.

But hey, it's just a number.  I don't feel that strongly either way. I 
think version number inflation (can anybody say "distribution makers"?) is 
a bit silly, and the way the kernel numbering works there is no reason to 
bump the major number for regular releases.

			Linus



From: Ingo Molnar
Subject: Re: [PATCH-RFC] 4 of 4 - New problem logging macros, SCSI RAIDdevice driver
Date: 	Sat, 28 Sep 2002 09:46:35 +0200 (CEST)

On Thu, 26 Sep 2002, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Thu, 26 Sep 2002, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > Tangent question, is it definitely to be named 2.6?
> 
> I see no real reason to call it 3.0.
> 
> The order-of-magnitude threading improvements might just come closest to
> being a "new thing", but yeah, I still consider it 2.6.x. We don't have
> new architectures or other really fundamental stuff. In many ways the
> jump from 2.2 -> 2.4 was bigger than the 2.4 -> 2.6 thing will be, I
> suspect.

i consider the VM and IO improvements one of the most important things
that happened in the past 5 years - and it's definitely something that
users will notice. Finally we have a top-notch VM and IO subsystem (in
addition to the already world-class networking subsystem) giving
significant improvements both on the desktop and the server - the jump
from 2.4 to 2.5 is much larger than from eg. 2.0 to 2.4.

I think due to these improvements if we dont call the next kernel 3.0 then
probably no Linux kernel in the future will deserve a major number. In 2-4
years we'll only jump to 3.0 because there's no better number available
after 2.8. That i consider to be ... boring :) [while kernel releases are
supposed to be a bit boring, i dont think they should be _that_ boring.]

	Ingo



From: jw schultz
Subject: Re: [PATCH-RFC] 4 of 4 - New problem logging macros, SCSI RAIDdevice driver
Date: 	Sat, 28 Sep 2002 02:16:34 -0700

On Sat, Sep 28, 2002 at 09:46:35AM +0200, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 26 Sep 2002, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > On Thu, 26 Sep 2002, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > > Tangent question, is it definitely to be named 2.6?
> > 
> > I see no real reason to call it 3.0.
> > 
> > The order-of-magnitude threading improvements might just come closest to
> > being a "new thing", but yeah, I still consider it 2.6.x. We don't have
> > new architectures or other really fundamental stuff. In many ways the
> > jump from 2.2 -> 2.4 was bigger than the 2.4 -> 2.6 thing will be, I
> > suspect.
> 
> i consider the VM and IO improvements one of the most important things
> that happened in the past 5 years - and it's definitely something that
> users will notice. Finally we have a top-notch VM and IO subsystem (in
> addition to the already world-class networking subsystem) giving
> significant improvements both on the desktop and the server - the jump
> from 2.4 to 2.5 is much larger than from eg. 2.0 to 2.4.
> 
> I think due to these improvements if we dont call the next kernel 3.0 then
> probably no Linux kernel in the future will deserve a major number. In 2-4
> years we'll only jump to 3.0 because there's no better number available
> after 2.8. That i consider to be ... boring :) [while kernel releases are
> supposed to be a bit boring, i dont think they should be _that_ boring.]
> 

Ingo, I agree with Linus.  My recollection of when we moved
to 2.0 was that the major number reflected the userkernel
ABI.  I have no problem with a version 2.42 if things stay
stable that long.   I hope they don't but that is another
issue.

Version 3.0 implies incompatibility with binaries from 2.x
The distributions can play around with version numbers
reflecting the GUI interface, libraries or installers but
the kernel major version should stay the same until binary
compatibility is broken.  When we move old syscalls (such as
32 bit file ops) from deprecated to unsupported is when we
increment the major number.

It may be that 2.7 will see the cruft cut out and be the end
of 2.x but 2.5 isn't that.  So far 2.5 is performance
enhancement.  Terrific performance enhancement, thanks to you
and many others.  But it isn't adding major new features nor
is it removing old interfaces.  In many ways 2.6 looks like
a sign that the 2.x kernel is getting mature.  2.6 means
users can expect improvements but don't have to make big changes.
2.6 is an upgrade, 3.0 would be a replacement.

-- 
________________________________________________________________
	J.W. Schultz            Pegasystems Technologies
	email address:		[email blocked]

		Remember Cernan and Schmitt



From: Horst von Brand
Subject: Kernel version [Was: Re: [PATCH-RFC] 4 of 4 - New problem logging macros, SCSI RAIDdevice driver]
Date: 	Sat, 28 Sep 2002 11:40:22 -0400

Ingo Molnar said:
> On Thu, 26 Sep 2002, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > On Thu, 26 Sep 2002, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > > Tangent question, is it definitely to be named 2.6?
> > 
> > I see no real reason to call it 3.0.
> > 
> > The order-of-magnitude threading improvements might just come closest to
> > being a "new thing", but yeah, I still consider it 2.6.x. We don't have
> > new architectures or other really fundamental stuff. In many ways the
> > jump from 2.2 -> 2.4 was bigger than the 2.4 -> 2.6 thing will be, I
> > suspect.
> 
> i consider the VM and IO improvements one of the most important things
> that happened in the past 5 years - and it's definitely something that
> users will notice. Finally we have a top-notch VM and IO subsystem (in
> addition to the already world-class networking subsystem) giving
> significant improvements both on the desktop and the server - the jump
> from 2.4 to 2.5 is much larger than from eg. 2.0 to 2.4.

But is is as large as the jump from 1.2.x to 2.0.x?

> I think due to these improvements if we dont call the next kernel 3.0 then
> probably no Linux kernel in the future will deserve a major number. In 2-4
> years we'll only jump to 3.0 because there's no better number available
> after 2.8. That i consider to be ... boring :) [while kernel releases are
> supposed to be a bit boring, i dont think they should be _that_ boring.]

What is wrong with 2.10, or 2.256 for that matter?
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                     Fono: +[blocked]
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria              +[blocked]
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile                Fax:  +[blocked]



From: Linus Torvalds
Subject: Re: v2.6 vs v3.0
Date: 	Sat, 28 Sep 2002 18:31:45 -0700 (PDT)

On Sat, 28 Sep 2002, Ingo Molnar wrote:
> 
> i consider the VM and IO improvements one of the most important things
> that happened in the past 5 years - and it's definitely something that
> users will notice. Finally we have a top-notch VM and IO subsystem (in
> addition to the already world-class networking subsystem) giving
> significant improvements both on the desktop and the server - the jump
> from 2.4 to 2.5 is much larger than from eg. 2.0 to 2.4.

Hey, _if_ people actually are universally happy with the VM in the current
2.5.x tree, I'll happily call the dang thing 5.0 or whatever (just
kidding, but yeah, that would be a good enough reason to bump the major
number).

However, I'll believe that when I see it. Usually people don't complain 
during a development kernel, because they think they shouldn't, and then 
when it becomes stable (ie when the version number changes) they are 
surprised that the behabviour didn't magically improve, and _then_ we get 
tons of complaints about how bad the VM is under their load.

Am I hapyy with current 2.5.x?  Sure. Are others? Apparently. But does 
that mean that we have a top-notch VM and we should bump the major number? 
I wish.

The block IO cleanups are important, and that was the major thing _I_ 
personally wanted from the 2.5.x tree when it was opened. I agree with you 
there. But I don't think they are major-number-material.

Anyway, people who are having VM trouble with the current 2.5.x series, 
please _complain_, and tell what your workload is. Don't sit silent and 
make us think we're good to go.. And if Ingo is right, I'll do the 3.0.x 
thing.

		Linus

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