Linus Torvalds Says Linux 4.0 Could Be Out In Three Years 174
darthcamaro writes "The wait between Linux 2.x and 3.x was a long one, but the wait to Linux 4? Well, that will only be a matter of three years, according to Linus Torvalds. '"It's just mentally much easier for people to remember the small number," Torvalds said during the LinuxCon conference in San Diego [Wednesday]. "We'll do 4.0 in three years maybe when the sub numbers have grown in the 20's and our feeble brains can't handle it."'"
Just numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
Judging from 3.0 which didn't have any breakthrough features included, this is just silly numbers talk.
Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
3.20's? (Score:4, Insightful)
We'll do 4.0 in three years maybe when the sub numbers have grown in the 20's and our feeble brains can't handle it.
If your numbers are going to be arbitrary, why not roll them over at 3.9?
Re:Just numbers (Score:4, Insightful)
Judging from 3.0 which didn't have any breakthrough features included, this is just silly numbers talk.
that's exactly what he said, it's just a number.
Not dead. (Score:2, Insightful)
Focusing on parallel execution and efficient scheduling of large number of processors.
Scheduling is now a rather complex item requiring more than just memory+ready to run.
Memory (where is the memory in a distributed system).
ready to run (where is the available processor)
scheduling additional constraints such as communication delays between memory and processor, between processor and peripheral, between peripheral and memory (DMA).
How to compute appropriate weighting efficiently, and fast.
Detecting complex distributed deadlocks, and determining recovery strategy with a minimum of computation time lost.
It gets much more complicated with such poorly designed architectures such as the X86.
What would be a better design for distributed systems? What kind of network should be used? What kind of granularity in scheduling is needed? What should be doing the scheduling ? Hardware, as in torus designs? or bus switch now that multimode fiber makes serial computing fast again?
What kinds of OS for a serial processor (or a optical processor where inputs strictly come from an input stream and continue to a separate output stream) should be used?
Lots of questions.
Re:Also (Score:3, Insightful)
Why isn't here a "+1 Funny Troll" mod?
Re:Firefox (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an factually incorrect statement.
3 years, at 52 weeks per year, is 156 weeks. With a version bump every 6 weeks, in 156 weeks, FireFox would reach version: current version + 156/6 = 15 + 26 = FireFox 41.
What I'm trying to say here: one doesn't even have to exaggerate...
And this is news because ? (Score:1, Insightful)
Linux 5.0 could be out tomorrow. Linus just has to say "this is 5.0". What does that tell us ? Absolutely nothing. Sorry Slashdot, I expected a bit better from you.
Re:Firefox (Score:4, Insightful)
Your mistake is linear extrapolation. Firefox' versioning seems to be exponential.
Re:Also (Score:3, Insightful)
Because if it's funny it's not a troll.