Linus looses Linux 4.3 on a waiting world

With fewer ugly incidents than might have been expected, and after an expletive-laden rant directed not at a coder but at code, Linux Torvalds has announced that Linux 4.3 has gone general availability. His note to the Linux Kernel Mailing List note that most of the changes from release candidate 7 were dominated by changes to …

[MacroRodent]

ext3

Note that ext3 file system support was not removed, because the ext4 code can also handle the older file system automatically. There is a good description of the issue here: http://lwn.net/Articles/651645/

[MrWibble]

I've been reading too many internet comments - I read the headline as "loses", and got confused.

[cambsukguy]

Easily done when everybody seems to think that lose is spelled loose these days.

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Confusion can be a real problem. Confusing the order "loose the dogs" with "lose the dogs" could have bad consequences for the canine companions, especially in certain shady circles

[Wilseus]

"Easily done when everybody seems to think that lose is spelled loose these days."

Not everybody. Only illiterate morons.

[Desidero]

And my Android autocorrect spelling. Some of the mistakes are truly ambitious - far more than a mere moron could aspire to.

[Anonymous Coward]

Illiterate morons can't spell much at all. I suspect they'd say "I don't know. Hang on. Siri, how do you spell lose?"

Oh, yes, topic. Hooray, a new kernel.

[CFWhitman]

Mispellings and binary interfaces

The problems with people spelling "lose" wrong are compounded by the fact that even if they know how to spell it, and just made a typo and wrote "loose" instead, it's still a correct word and so doesn't get flagged by a spell checker. Still, I'm astounded by how often I see that error. They can't all be typos.

I imagine the rant about Linux drivers (though I didn't actually see it) was intended to be an attack on the fact that the binary interface for kernel modules (and thus drivers) is not frozen and can change. Thus people can't write a driver and have it continue to work indefinitely after kernel updates. The poster was assuming that this had something to do with the kernel being monolithic and drivers being modules. That's not actually the case.

Some would like to see a frozen binary interface for drivers. However, Linus sees a frozen binary interface as a bug rather than a feature. This is certainly true if you want the kernel to be portable between architectures. If a frozen binary interface for drivers were supported, then Linux could end up being very dependent on whatever platform it was most popular on. This is out of line with the goals of kernel developers. There will be no frozen binary interface for drivers, and that's a good thing. That way Linux can work not only on x86, but also on ARM, MIPS, Power, etc. with the least amount of developer effort necessary.

[phil dude]

Re: Mispellings and binary interfaces

in principle, the binary interface could a be separate component. I mean, assuming you had some way of indicating the arguments would be interpreted correctly.

I had this thought when I first used C++ overloading at school.

What else are we going to use our faster chips on other than template compilation!!!!

P.

[Richard Lloyd]

Loose can mean to release or to set free...

...but it's normally used in the context of an object that's tied up tight in the first place and I'd probably use "loosens" myself anyway. I don't think you can use the word to refer a kernel that's already gone through several RC versions, because that's hardly tied up or tight :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

inspirational stuff...

Lots of small fixes and a bunch of new drivers. Wow. Just wow.

Lets all collectively gush over the moral and technical superiority of Linux, and renew our fist-shaking efforts at any that dare consider using an alternative (especially Windows 10)