Linus Torvalds: Someone 'More Competent Who Isn't Afraid of Numbers Past the Teens' Will Take Over Linux One Day

Source: Slashdot

Overview

Linus Torvalds reflected on his professional mortality in a self‑deprecating post marking the release of the first release candidate for version 7.0 of the Linux kernel. In the announcement he wrote:

“You all know the drill by now: two weeks have passed, and the kernel merge window is closed.
We have a new major number purely because I’m easily confused and not good with big numbers.”

Torvalds pointed out that the numbers he assigns to new kernel releases are essentially meaningless:

“We haven’t done releases based on features (or on ‘stable vs unstable’) for a long, long time now. So that new major number does not mean that we have some big new exciting feature, or that we’re somehow leaving old interfaces behind. It’s the usual ‘solid progress’ marker, nothing more.”

He reiterated his plan to end each series of kernels at x.19 before the next release becomes y.0—a process that takes about 3.5 years. When asked what will happen when the next version of Linux reaches a number he finds uncomfortable, he responded:

“I don’t have a solid plan for when the major number itself gets big. By that time, I expect that we’ll have somebody more competent in charge who isn’t afraid of numbers past the teens. So I’m not going to worry about it.”

Read the original post on The Register: .