“Many developers are eagerly awaiting the 2.6 Linux kernel. The feature freeze has passed, with a code freeze planned for January and final release slated for the second quarter of 2003. There is considerable excitement about anticipated enhancements, especially regarding scalability and performance. However, some developers may first notice what doesn’t work anymore. Some techniques and APIs have been removed, and existing device drivers and modular plugins may no longer work. At the same time, it will take some time to take advantage of new features and to find replacements for old ones.” Read the article at OnLamp.
Vanishing Features of the 2.6 Kernel
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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sure, it is not a major break, but it IS a break. seems like 3.0 would have been a better name than 2.6, especialy from the comercial aspect…I mean, many companies don’t expect stuff to break for a minor version so the QA might not be as extensive as it would be for a major version.
They are not a company. They don’t have to answer to consumers about versioning or breakage. They are an open source project making one paticular part of this abstract thing called “Linux”.
My Microsoft infiltrators have surreptitiously been “contributing” code to Linux in such a way that their “improvements” necessitate the removal of parts that were already working! Wait ’til you see how Linux measures up to Windows in 3 years, when the “improved” architecture itself prevents it from mimicking new Windows features to come! Heeheehee!
This is bad, if nothing else, because of the flawed attitude. Too many OSS developers with inflated egos and too little accountability.
The removal of Cruft is a good thing! Other people may not like the decisions, but at least Linus is removing stuff. It’s the developer’s choice–they’re not taking 2.4 away, or even 2.2. Those are done the developers are moving on.
Look at Windows–MS tries very hard not to remove things to please everyone. And please no one, by making it try to work with everything that came before. Of course the openness helps too. Anyone can see what is removed and work around it!
oh come on, you see applications breaking on windows every day, development on this platform is a definite problem. and if you add the kernel that’s changing without maintaining backwards compatibility, you have a total shambles. don’t be a linux parrot, think with your head, think instead of just parroting. Yes, people need the applications. They don’t care about a whiz-bang new feature in the holy kernel, if they can’t run AppX on it. And it’s not like Linux is so rich of all kinds of apps, really.
It doesn’t look like any applications will be broken. However a few closed source kernel modules might be inconvenienced, which is a good thing. Developers should not get used to using GPLed code in their closed source projects. Its illegal. I think the Linux kernel is improving very nicely. Especially like the Tux and chromium webserver.
Closed source kernel modules doesnt mean that they contain GPL code. Some hardware manufacturers simply do not want to reveal secrets about their hardware by opening their driver code. I think that should be their decision and we shouldn’t make it uneccesarily hard for them.
If it becomes too bothersome to produce a new driver for every kernel release I think they will just stop making drivers for linux altogether and everyone will lose. I hardly think we can pressure them into making their drivers opensource against their will. Right now the binary NVidia drivers are the only option for some half decent 3D acceleration on linux. If the binary drivers were gone we’d be shivering out in 2D land again.
I’m running RedHat 8.0 with an NVidia card and their binary drivers appear to be working just fine. The changes that are being made to the 2.5.x kernel have been rolled into RedHat’s 2.4.18 kernel in 8.0. If these changes significantly affected closed source drivers then there might be some reason to cry about the sky falling. But they don’t and there isn’t. Closed source drivers can do everything they ever could, they just can’t make use of or override my GPLed system calls. This means its more secure for me. I don’t have to worry about some third party hardware/closed source driver developer pulling something tricky, touching parts of my system they shouldn’t have access to. This is not about converting closed source software to use the GPL. It has always been recommended that you use the GPL with this platform since it benefits everyone, but that isn’t necessary. Closed source software developers must, however, learn to coexist and write everything they need from scratch instead of steal/illegally borrow it from something GPL, especially in the kernel! Don’t you hate thieves?
“too many OSS developers with inflated egos and too little accountability.”
*Snort* haha thanks for the laugh. As opposed to the inflated egos and lacking accountability of closed source developers.
Spoken like a true MS lemming. The sword cuts both ways wise-acre
Like c posted RTFA, some companies who do binary only modules may have to modify them for the new kernel. Big fscking deal. 1) The isn’t happening tomorrow or even next month, the companies have plently of time to implement a new module. 2) being that the kernel is opensource its trivial to lookup up what has changed and how things will work, this of course is opposed to closed source companies who just one day roll out some closed source code and annouce things are broken.
“Right now the binary NVidia drivers are the only option for some half decent 3D acceleration on linux. If the binary drivers were gone we’d be shivering out in 2D land again.”
Well being that the linux desktop doesn’t have a bright future anyway I wouldn’t see that as a big deal. The bottom line is the future for linux is on servers,pdas etc and not desktops. Sure I like Redhat 8.0(been using it since 5.2) but I’m not delusional enough to still believe that the linux desktop will ever become popular. The big ISVs like Intuit and Adobe, and of course MS have passed on linux and without them Linux just won’t gain a lot of traction on the desktop. Trust me I’ve converted a lot of people in my time and still to this day help a lot of people use linux, but how many more years will go by without the important commercial companies ported their apps to linux?