It really ought to be Linus and/or Alan who answers this, but from my own observations, here's the way I think it goes: Alan and Linus don't always agree on what should be in the kernel; and even when they do, they sometimes disagree on when something is ready to be included. Alan may think a particular set of patches are ready, while Linus thinks they need to mature a bit more; or perhaps he thinks the whole approach is wrong and should be scrapped. So Alan puts it in his kernel, and Linus leaves it out of his. (Of course, sometimes it's Linus who adds something that Alan rejects.) It sometimes happens that one of these new ideas turns out better than expected (especially after going through a few bug report/new patch cycles), and the person who rejected it changes his mind and includes it later; or maybe it doesn't work out and gets dropped altogether. Also, as you've already observed, Alan regularly resyncs major parts of his tree with Linus' so they don't get too far apart, and Linus occasionally does the same. It used to bother me, too, to have to keep up with two different kernel trees. But I've come to realize that this is a Good Thing. It provides a way for people with different viewpoints to approach an idea from more than one direction. If the two kernels are trying to solve a particular problem in different ways, we get to see how each approach works in the real world, rather than just in a theoretical discussion. If the two kernels branch too far apart it could be a problem, but Linus and Alan have been diligent about keeping that from happening. I think the interplay (is "competition" too strong a word?) between the two branches has helped make the "official" kernel better than it might have been otherwise. Wayne - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
