Linux creator Linus Torvalds’ latest update, which details some key information for the first release candidate of version 6.1, has some underlying messages and pleas to the project’s developers.
He opens by saying that “we ‘only’ have 11.5k non-merge commits during this merge window, compared to 13.5k last time around”, which is “not exactly tiny, but smaller than the last few releases.”
We’ve already written about Linux’s commitment to supporting Rust, and the latest news confirms that the “initial Rust scaffolding” forms part of version 6.1-rc1. He explains that there is “no actual real Rust code in the kernel yet, but the infrastructure is there”.
Torvalds’ message to developers
Torvalds also took the opportunity to express his frustration with the amount of late pull requests.
He says: “Yes, the merge window is two weeks, but that’s very much to allow me time to look things over, not ‘two weeks to hurriedly put together a branch that you send Linus on Friday of the second week’.”
In fact, his dig at the project’s developers continues: “The whole ‘do an all-nighter to get the paper in the day before the [deadline]’ is something that should have gone out the window after highschool. Not for kernel development.”
The teacher-pupil-style threat continues: “You know who you are.”
While he asks that things are sent to him before the merge window opens, Torvalds expresses his tolerance for some late entries, which he puts down to “life happens”.
This isn’t the first time that Torvalds has had to ask developers to pull their finger out, and he suspects it won’t be the last, either, however moving forward, he hopes that “more people could take it to heart”.
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