From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: alt.os.linux
Subject: Deadline for 0.13
Date: 4 Feb 92 14:27:32 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki

Ok, once more a new release seems to be in order: as far as I know I
should get the VFS patches in a week, so I'll probably be able to come
out with linux version 0.13 late February or early March (I'd guess
March).

The new version will be the first one where most of the patches weren't
written by me: nice going. As far as I can see, the new features of 0.13
will be:

- virtual consoles patches: these are already in place in my kernel, and
I'm happy to report that the scrolling speed is impressive once more.
The VC's should also work on other than EGA/VGA's although there might
be small problems still (I've been unable to test it, but I haven't
changed the patches very much).

- VFS. I haven't seen this yet, so I cannot say anything about it. I
expect longer filenames will be in 0.14 (April-May?).

- Floppy patch. This one I haven't yet even stared on, and I'll probably
work on it a bit, but I'll expect floppies are much faster in 0.13.

- The swapon-patch to swap from the filesystem. I've applied this one,
but I expect it will have to be changed for the VFS, and I'll have to
work on it a bit (making the swap-pointer buffer dynamic etc).

- minor (but pretty important) fixes like the incorrect error code from
a read past the end of a device, non-blocking IO on pipes/ttys etc.

+ some fixes by me: changes in the serial interrupts and removal of some
races with the VM etc.

Additionally, I guess one of the init/getty/login packages should be
included this time: if you have a working init/login, please mail me
(not the full thing, just mail me /about/ it). Size is somewhat an
issue: I want to fit it on the floppy with all the other programs.

I still haven't applied the lp-patch, and I'll try to do that one too:
but I don't have a printer, so I'm not really motivated ...

Additional patches will be received until a **** deadline of February
15th ****: if you think you have a neat patch, but cannot get it ready
for that, you can try to mail me about it.  We'll work something out (or
then you might have to wait for the next release).  Note that even
patches received before the deadline might not make it if I have some
good (or not so good) reason for it. 

----------

That said, over to other (but related) business: future releases. A
couple of points:

- linux starts to get ready to be called version 1.0.  It's not perfect
(and never will be), but it's useable on many machines.  I like being
able to call it beta (and it /does/ warn people that there are bugs),
but I guess it isn't really so much beta after two more releases.  I
don't think it has to be able to run X etc before we can call it 1.0: my
original goal was to run gcc (one of my personal tests of a system), and
that I did under 0.01. 

- I'd also suggest we move away from me as the upkeeper of linux: my
resources start to get thin.  Maybe not right now, possibly not for the
next release, but perhaps by summer? When SCSI (and even things like
printer support) means I cannot test the patches out, things won't work
very well any more.  I'd like to hear some discussion on this (moving
1.0 to be under rcs, and some "linux-kernel" mailing list for patches
and discussions on the "canonical" system etc)

- I hope people calm down in the feature-hunting: linux still needs some
things (sockets/named pipes, a better fs), but I'd like to keep linux
small ("keep" doesn't mean I will fight anyone if he wants to make a
"super-linux", it just means I think /I/ cannot support it).  If linux
grows much more, ast's comments will actually mean something: I admit
that keeping up a big kernel without any underlying design philosophy
(other than "get it working") probably won't be worth the result. 

		Linus