Mandrake 10 has it, SUSE's rolling it out in 9.1, Gentoo has had a "test" version with it since last year, and now we'll probably see almost every commercial distribution move to 2.6.x within the next month or two because of competitive pressure. This is not in line with the basic "it's ready when it's ready" dictum that is given as the reason open source software is often technically superior to proprietary competitors.
One distribution developer I know feels pressured to come out with a 2.6 version by May 1 at the latest. He believes downloads and sales will suffer if his company's products lag behind others'.
Why a May 1 deadline? Once again, a business imperative. IT industry sales traditionally slow down during the summer months. In many marketers' eyes, there's no point in releasing anything new while people are thinking about vacations, not about buying new hardware or software. They say, "If you can't have your latest (whatever) on the market soon enough to get a 'bump' in sales before summer comes around, you might as well wait until September."
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