Bruce Momjian wrote:
>Andrew Sullivan wrote:
>
>
>>On Fri, Oct 03, 2003 at 09:17:16AM -0700, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
>>
>>
>>>What if the feature does break compatibility with old features?
>>>What if it is "truly" a new feature?
>>>
>>>
>>There is _no_ mechanism in the community right now for testing all
>>these new features in the so-called stable tree.
>>
>>I have lately been taking the position that Linux is only a
>>second-best choice for production use, precisely because of the
>>constant introduction of shiny new features in the supposed stable
>>branch. Without using something like RHAS or Debian stable, I think
>>one is asking for trouble. One needs to do a great deal of testing
>>
>>
>
>Agreed. Great Bridge was going to test our releases and only distribute
>the good ones --- obviously they were thinking of Linux kernels and not
>PostgreSQL. You almost need a commercial company to do testing with
>Linux kernels. PostgreSQL doesn't require this, and I think Linux is
>popular _in_ _spite_ of their buggy backported kernels (odd numbers?),
>not because of it.
>
>
>
The reason there is a lot of backporting in Linux kernels is that there
is such a lot of time (2 years or more) between major kernel releases.
This is not surprising given the kernel's complexity, but it is not the
case here, with releases every 6 months or so.
In general I agree that only true bug fixes should go in later versions
of official releases after they are out - if anyone wants to backpatch
features they can, but then they wear the risk. Do it on GBorg if you
like, but not in the main tree.
cheers
andrew