Linus Torvalds Promises Profanity Over Linux 3.10-rc5 334
hypnosec writes "Linus Torvalds has released Linux 3.10-rc5, and he is certainly not happy with the changes merged last week. Rc5 is bigger than rc4 and has code scattered across its entire code base because it addresses many outstanding problems. In the release announcement, Torvalds noted, 'I wish I could say that things are calming down, but I'd be lying. rc5 is noticeably bigger than rc4, both in number of commits and in files changed (although rc4 actually had more lines changed, so there's that).' Torvalds has warned that he is going to start cursing again, and said, 'I'm going to call you guys out on, and try to come up with new ways to insult you, your mother, and your deceased pet hamster.'"
RC release are for bux fixes, not new features (Score:5, Informative)
At this point in the RC cycle, the expectation is that only bug fixes will be introduced. The latest merge include changes that had nothing to do with listed issues.
New features belong in the 3.11 branch.
Re:Well... (Score:2, Informative)
The point of the release candidate process is to provide something that contains the entirety of the feature set in a release, but to provide it for testing, not release.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
He's angry because many of the changes are to non-critical stuff. That's not the priority, and it gets in the way.
Here's part of his quote in context, which the summary didn't bother to provide:
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
Because people aren't sending him fixes for concerns that have to be addressed before the release. They're sending him "this is a bit messy, here's code that looks a bit cleaner" or "it works but I don't like it so here's a different way to do the same thing". And sometimes as the manager you have to smack the devs with the cluebat to get them to remember that it doesn't matter if the code's messy or ugly, it doesn't matter if there's another way to do it, it doesn't matter if there's a better way to do it, by the time you're at the release-candidate stage the only things you should be sending in changes for are fixes for the things that're actually not working right. If you don't, they'll keep tweaking forever and you'll never get a release. As a dev myself I can understand where Linus is coming from here. I doubt he's even really mad at anyone, just irritated at everyone and issuing a pointed reminder that there's a difference between what the devs want to do and what they ought to be doing before he does have to get mad at anyone.
Re:Whew (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Who determines what gets comitted? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a three-layer process. Devs themselves are expected to adhere to the rules. Then the subsystem maintainers are supposed to filter changes to their subsystems. And finally Linus is the final arbiter on what gets merged into the release branch. Technically devs can check in anything they want, but it has to go through the subsystem maintainers and Linus to get into the release. Linus' role here is prodding the subsystem maintainers and the devs themselves to remember the rules and stop sending him so many things to sort through. It's easier on him if it's 90% rubber-stamp approvals and if a few stragglers get through it's not causing any widespread issues, as opposed to if it's 50% cruft and if he doesn't scrutinize everything carefully it's going to be a mess.
Re:first (Score:4, Informative)
No. For a comparison, you need to look at usage requirements. If all you need is something on the level of fvwm, you can't get there with Windows.
Re:Torvalds is right (Score:5, Informative)
I think you haven't been following Linux development very long. There are several branches at all times, each with their own maintainer. Linus controls the final merge, but it's the same basic process used in the other trees.
The question is, when Linus retires, will there be one sucessor or several, not whether there will be any. And that depends on the politics at the time.
Also, somebody needs to be in charge of the final merge. Some one person. If you have several independent trees, each one of them needs someone in charge of the merges into their trees. It's better PR to have one tree that is released. Currently that one's managed by Linus. But note that that's PR. Each distro really manages it's own tree, and they can accept and reject software and patches without reference to what Linus decides. And they frequently do. For eas of reference they generally describe what they're using as a customization of some particular Linux kernel.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Informative)
Telling a contributor that they shouldn't be submitting the code they worked on is a great way to kill creativity and drive people away from the project.
Know what's an even better way to drive people away from a project? Never ship a high quality release, so your users give up and stop deploying your program. Adding immature developers to a project isn't a gain either, and that's what this whole "you'll kill my creativity" angle is--a mix of immaturity and ego.
You can adopt tactics toward tight change control to try and reduce bug count, or you can let developers work with an unbounded target where people can change things forever. But you can't do both, and Linus is running a project where it's important to ship releases. In every project there are some developers with an ego or authority issue, ones who think the rules around release candidates don't apply to them, that their changes are important, and surely they cannot introduce bugs. But that's how amateur coders think, and adding people with that attitude doesn't benefit any serious project.
Re:Profanity? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, there is something wrong with being a dick. It is very, VERY rare that people need to be dicks. What I've find is that people who enjoy being dicks find excuses to be dicks, no matter what.
Re:Profanity? (Score:3, Informative)
You are truly clueless - I've just read what he actually said, he was actually giving a very mild rebuke in a humours way - and considering the situation, he was more than justified to be harsher!