From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from bombadil.infradead.org (bombadil.infradead.org [198.137.202.133]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 5F4C8272E6D; Sun, 14 Sep 2025 06:10:06 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=198.137.202.133 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1757830211; cv=none; b=YvKpjQx2Z2dvfrDrdA32oABw1TtTewczBC1C3dAKroB6GDz3DNmQSk+uGY4KULaxHzTpBNEwSgAXs0/urBMxTa4DpjG547MCtPplcKKY3JuelvMg9BxPphIu2nklcrMzXO9t72MavvpESW9BACRMPK0nnPPKrTvpz0ZcdB7SzRM= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1757830211; c=relaxed/simple; bh=en4EPSHAY+78dWvWrYG0CPGUeolpy9yjhYRTzJqB9+k=; h=Message-ID:Date:MIME-Version:Subject:To:Cc:References:From: In-Reply-To:Content-Type; b=jK2EI0+Nk1Or505xb6Opbidqqs4ZzC8q5K12wJXWP0zIsVbJDNT5OygIc9BZVdhisv3Bl+i2HEJHlUQNlwgYTjKCPqovfZWgdYxdJ7QVMbSwws39J8CBcWOBeYTbatCPgDIOb7MMyfW4/Egwkyhwd1tdWRrV2WtWfeQXaPkwP0I= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=none (p=none dis=none) header.from=infradead.org; spf=none smtp.mailfrom=infradead.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=infradead.org header.i=@infradead.org header.b=oRq349JN; arc=none smtp.client-ip=198.137.202.133 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=none (p=none dis=none) header.from=infradead.org Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=none smtp.mailfrom=infradead.org Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key) header.d=infradead.org header.i=@infradead.org header.b="oRq349JN" DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=infradead.org; s=bombadil.20210309; h=Content-Transfer-Encoding: Content-Type:In-Reply-To:From:References:Cc:To:Subject:MIME-Version:Date: Message-ID:Sender:Reply-To:Content-ID:Content-Description; bh=58RoTa3TrNjhhtCEti8RBsnnl0PSeZGOGMgdc95agK0=; b=oRq349JN2OQhmvh5yJO7HLpQ5Q L9rDppFV0ydeH2JRDgv49VxLwXpfTguxkAlpvWHxvfHc/OR05oSfsF272uYAse/Oz9pka3c8BN6dv 0JgBZGjR5BPvRknfzqEaRgST9qb1+yVvRsK+AL5fIktzFvMcpvr/KgvHzPdblEvflwtJX5YGC4HfP FbEDLrZl6Tghh5w+Hctc3WFsHdOi0Yz+uTTralJwGWpKcdLCASXiMoA448hZXCjnKMwJaHtsV1QWn O8IlUh0oNpWJd6QMdF+3arCD/Cd7mO4UuX1tPsWCjwW9zeCUx5WPvHO8bEuQSbtkp+K9iP+Hj2Ikl Tse0jRtw==; Received: from [50.53.25.54] (helo=[192.168.254.17]) by bombadil.infradead.org with esmtpsa (Exim 4.98.2 #2 (Red Hat Linux)) id 1uxfw4-00000000BV4-2gIW; Sun, 14 Sep 2025 06:10:04 +0000 Message-ID: <5fcf5f4a-1bbf-458e-8aab-8c66d326fd17@infradead.org> Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2025 23:10:04 -0700 Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: workflows@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Subject: Re: [PATCH] Documentation: process: Do not hardcode kernel major version number To: Bagas Sanjaya , Linux Kernel Mailing List , Linux Documentation , Linux Kernel Workflows Cc: Jonathan Corbet , Dante Strock References: <20250913015147.9544-1-bagasdotme@gmail.com> <61249b3d-3996-4d9f-814b-3794aa42c40b@infradead.org> Content-Language: en-US From: Randy Dunlap In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi, On 9/13/25 8:18 PM, Bagas Sanjaya wrote: > On 9/14/25 04:40, Randy Dunlap wrote: >> On 9/12/25 6:51 PM, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:   >>> -The kernel developers use a loosely time-based release process, with a new >>> -major kernel release happening every two or three months.  The recent >>> -release history looks like this: >>> +Linux kernel uses a loosely time-based, rolling release development model. >> >>     The Linux kernel >> >>> +A new major kernel release (a.x) [1]_ happens every two or three monts, which >> >> I'm much more used to x.y                                           months, >> > > The reason I use a.x is because a is indeed supermajor (only incremented on occasional cases i.e. in Linux kernel when x gets large enough), and > x is already used as second placeholder component. Do we use the word "supermajor" anywhere? $ grep ... Nope. How about we call it MAJOR (like the top-level Makefile does; well, it calls it both VERSION and MAJOR[1]), so use m.x I would say "or v.x" but that could be confusing when someone references a v6.17-rc5 kernel. [1]: from Makefile:VERSION = 6 PATCHLEVEL = 17 SUBLEVEL = 0 and echo \#define LINUX_VERSION_MAJOR $(VERSION); \ echo \#define LINUX_VERSION_PATCHLEVEL $(PATCHLEVEL); \ echo \#define LINUX_VERSION_SUBLEVEL $(SUBLEVEL) G'day. -- ~Randy