January 2, 2001
(Computerworld)
Two months ago, Linux creator Linus Torvalds thought he would finally be ready to release a long-delayed upgrade of the open-source operating system's kernel by the end of December. But on New Year's Eve, Torvalds abandoned his latest target date, posting a note on the Internet saying that the Linux 2.4 kernel is still not finished.
In his message to a mailing list that's devoted to Linux kernel development, Torvalds announced that he wouldn't make the end-of-the-year release deadline. "I tried, but we had some last-minute stuff that needed fixing," Torvalds said. "The best I can do is make a prerelease" of the promised kernel.
In particular, he cited the need to do more work on the so-called "dirty page lists" that help define how pages are stored in a computer's memory. Referring to the prerelease that can now be downloaded via the Internet, Torvalds also said that he wants developers and potential users "to test it for a while."
And he wrote that computer architectures need "the chance to catch up with some of the changes" being made in the new kernel, such as its ability to handle machines based on processors running at 2.4 GHz and above. But Torvalds did promise that there will be no further prerelease versions of the kernel.
The 2.4 kernel is highly anticipated because it will offer increased symmetrical multiprocessing scalability, which could be a boon for users who want to run corporate applications on Linux-based servers. The current Linux 2.2 kernel is generally considered to scale well up to only four processors.
Linux 2.4 originally was due out in late 1999, but it has been beset by several delays since then because of the need for bug fixes and other issues. Torvalds had raised hopes that the kernel was finally almost finished in November, when he posted a test version that he said had "no known bugs that I consider show-stoppers" (see story).
Bill Claybrook, an analyst at Aberdeen Group Inc. in Boston, said the repeated delays in completing work on the new kernel are becoming reminiscent of the release problems that vendors such as Microsoft Corp. have had with software products.
Torvalds and other Linux developers "really have to do a better job of getting the releases out," Claybrook said. "People get a little bit discouraged by [the repeated delays]. I think it looks bad if the Linux folks are doing as badly as Microsoft."
But Al Gillen, an analyst at IDC in Framingham, Mass., said the continuing delays are part of the open-source development process. "It comes with the turf, pretty much," Gillen said.
Related stories: