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Re: [tlug] Just curious... how much impact does a kernel update make?



Edward,

Thanks for responding.

But in all seriousness, my impression is that its just a version not a
marketing number so unless something major changes or they decide
2.6.257 doesn't work it may not change.

I find this all very fascinating.

When I first reflected on what you said about it not being a marketing number, I thought that meant that the Linux developers having no motivation to attach arbitrary numbers to make the kernel appear more modern as an enticement for people to adopt it. That would contrast it with someone like Adobe who rolls out a new version of their CS suite every 18 months, regardless of the scale or sensibility of their changes, because they want to get people feeling like they need the latest.

But then I considered other open source or free software projects, and they use version numbers all the time. For example, KDE has been working toward a version 4 (or 4.1? not sure... I'm not a KDE user) which was signified by certain milestones of development they wanted to achieve. Whereas Adobe wants to create a version number and then make it appear to have value, a free software developer decides what would have value and then assigns a version number to work toward.

Of course, different developers all have differing motivations for using version numbers. But if my above analysis is generally applicable, then it would seem to me that the Linux kernel developers pretty much think that the kernel does exactly what it needs to do, and only needs maintenance in the form of minor adjustments for new hardware and the like.

Does that sound like a reasonable take on it?



--
Dave M G
http://tlug.jp/mediawiki/index.php?title=User:Dave_M_G


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