Linus has posted a note on the delay in the 3.0 release (caused by the tricky VFS bug and some RCU issues) and the implications for the 3.1 merge window, which will now extend well into his vacation. As he points out: "I won't have WiFi under water, and the computer I will have there have won't be doing git merges," so he wants to get as much merging as possible done before he leaves.
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The Linux Foundation Video Contest this year is different. For the first time, we're running it mid-year and more importantly, it is one of the ways we're celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Linux. Here are five more reasons to submit a video this year! Deadline is July 2, 2011.
1) Linus. Linux creator Linus Torvalds is choosing the ultimate winner this year. No one has a better sense of humor, or competitive streak, than Linus. Winning this year's contest will get you some real community cred. Don't be intimidated. No flames.
2) Planes, trains and automobiles. You get a free trip, people. And, you get to choose from four different destinations depending on which event you choose to attend as the winner: LA Film Festival (Los Angeles), SXSW (Austin, Texas), LinuxCon North America (Vancouver, B.C.) or LinuxCon Europe (Prague).
3) You'll go down in history. This year's winning video will become *the* 20th Anniversary of Linux video. It will be hosted here on the widely visited Linux.com website and The Linux Foundation's YouTube Channel, as well as promoted to hundreds of thousands of people on The Linux Foundation's social channels.
4) Get skillz. If the only thing you've ever shot is your kid eating applesauce but you had a great time doing it...winning this contest could open up a new outlet for your creativity or even get you noticed and open up a new career path.
5) Make a difference, inspire. Linux invokes passionate emotion from the people who use it and who are involved in its development. Linux is the largest collaborative development project in the history of computing. It set the expectation that software, hardware and much more could be built collectively. Your video could plant the seed for the next inspiration to come from Linux.
Last week it looked like we were, finally, going to get a version bump from 2.6 to 2.8. Instead, Linus Torvalds has bitten the bullet and tagged the first release candidate of the next kernel to 3.0.
That's right — it looks like the next kernel release is going to go all the way to 11, er, 3.0. If you missed the discussion last week, this isn't because the kernel is gaining massive new functionality (as it did from the 1.x to 2.0.x series), but because "it will get released close enough to the 20-year mark, which is excuse enough for me." Sounds like a good enough reason here, too.
To be clear, 3.0 will not be a radical change. According to Torvalds, "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."
Want to test the new kernel, check for it in the /pub/linux/kernel/v3.0 directory, though the git tree is still linux-2.6.git for now.
If we follow the "once per decade" model, it looks like we'll have Linux 4.0 sometime in 2020.
For anyone that was doubting Linus Torvalds would finally part ways with the Linux 2.6 kernel series, you lost your bets. On the eve of Memorial Day in the United States and his departure to Japan for LinuxCon, Linus Torvalds just tagged Linux 3.0-rc1 in Git...
Why now? Torvalds released 2.6.39 last week. As we're looking at 2.6.40, Torvalds seems to think it's time for a change. "The voices in my head also tell me that the numbers are getting too big. I may just call the thing 2.8.0. And I almost guarantee that this PS is going to result in more discussion than the rest, but when the voices tell me to do things, I listen."
And so it has. While many developers dismiss version numbering as "just marketing," marketing does have some importance. Those in the know may understand that the version numbers indicate very little about the actual changes between versions — but the rest of the world still looks at the numbers.
The rest of the world that looks at the numbers has been waiting a long time for a version bump. It's been about seven years since the first 2.6.0 kernel was released, and the odd-numbered scheme for development kernels was abandoned, which is easily the longest stretch without a version bump:
Linux pre-1.0 versions ran from 1991 to 1994: Three years.Linux 1.x ran from 1994 through mid-1996: Two and half years.Linux 2.0.x was the mainline stable kernel from mid-1996 through early 1999: Less than three years.Linux 2.2.x was the mainline stable kernel from early 1999 through early 2001: About two years.Linux 2.4.x was the mainline stable kernel from early 2001 through late 2003: About three years.Linux 2.6.x is the mainline stable kernel since mid-December 2003: More than seven years.Note that, of course, the kernel folks continued to release updates to previous kernels even after a new major version was released. So, for example, the 2.4 release still receives (infrequently) updates for the small number of users who are on 2.4.x. Prior to 2.6.x the kernel had an odd/even numbering scheme for development vs. stable kernels. For example, work on major new features would go into 2.5.x while 2.4.x was the mainline stable release.
The reason it's been so long for a "major" bump is that the old model of kernel development went by the wayside in favor of time-based releases. This got rid of the need for odd/even releases and major bumps in release numbers that indicated lots of new features that had been in the works.
A 2.8 release won't really indicate big changes in the kernel — but it would get press attention outside (and inside) the Linux community, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. And it would coincide nicely with the 20th anniversary of the Linux kernel, which is (arguably) in August.
Does that mean a 3.0 is within sight? Yes and no. Maybe as Linux approaches its 30th anniversary. Torvalds says, "since we no longer do version numbers based on features, but based on time, just saying 'we're about to start the third decade'" works as well as any other excuse" to name the release Linux 3.0.
LinuxFR has an interview with Linus Torvalds on a wide range of subjects. "LinuxFR : What is your opinion about Android ? Are you mostly happy they made cellphones very usable or sad because it's really a kernel fork ? Linus Torvalds : I think forks are good things, they don't make me sad. A lot of Linux development has come out of forks, and it's the only way to keep developers honest - the threat that somebody else can do a better job and satisfy the market better by being different. The whole point of open source to me is really the very real ability to fork (but also the ability for all sides to then merge the forked content back, if it turns out that the fork was doing the right things!)"
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