A stable and mature Linux kernel is enabling its chief developers to shift away from the common kernel development model to one that will result in more frequent releases. Up to now, once a production Linux kernel was released, stabilized, patched and updated as a point release, any new feature or technology in progress was moved to a new development and test kernel.
But with a common goal of providing a more constant, smoother and faster development cycle, new technologies are being put directly into 2.6.x, while any move to start a 2.7 development tree is still many months away, Linus Torvalds, the creator of the Linux kernel, told eWEEK in an e-mail interview. The current production 2.6 kernel was released in January, and its most recent version, 2.6.9, was released in October.
"There still hasn"t been a single patch that has made me or Andrew [Morton, who maintains the 2.6 kernel] say, "Hmm, that looks too fundamental; it really needs 2.7." So right now, I"m trying to concentrate on being good about merging "regular" things into 2.6.x," Torvalds said. "We"ll see when we get to the point that people get too frustrated about something really disruptive that we need a 2.7.x.