On Wed, 9 Jan 2002, Brian wrote: > I'm not familiar with the patching procedure on the linux kernel. Once a > patch is submitted to LKML, does it get merged into the next release? For > instance, do the patches for 2.4.19 that are posted now get merged into > the 2.4.20 codebase? > Patches are applied at the whim of the core developers and Linus. Dave Miller and Alan Cox are pretty good at tracking meritorious patches and helping keep them on target, but there is a definite barrier to getting patches into the kernel. In some ways this is a good thing. I've seen more different scheduler patches fall by the wayside because nobody understood them, including the original authors. In some ways it is not so good, as the number of interface changes in recent years has begun to outweigh functionality improvements. I think the model is due to fall apart in the next few years, I don't really know what the current state is as I got fed up and dropped out about 4 years ago. -- Daniel Taylor dante at plethora.net