On 12/04/11 23:20, Drew Adams wrote:
[...] I have proposed a model for version numbering that would make the openSUSE numbering much more meaningful( this would look like 12.0, 12.1, 12.2, 12.3, etc.). If there is NO way to move from the voted upon numbering system than I think we should at least use it with my model (that is where the 12.1.1, 12.1.2 numbering comes from)... I know you said this would be bad and maybe you are right but then I think that the only other model that works is the one I proposed originally. [...]
I would like to know how you feel about the numbering and release model I proposed. Also what you think your colleagues would think of the number we would use with it?.. that is if you feel comfortable making that prediction.
I appreciate your input. We will probably never find a solution that works for everybody. I guess for the time being we just have to accept the results of the poll and live with it to fight another day... ;-) I can't give you my colleagues' opinions on your proposal right now, I can only provide my personal opinion: Any scheme that follows the XX.YY convention implies a major/minor versioning. That's perhaps not necessarily how it is meant to be (certainly not the current openSUSE versioning scheme), but that is what the majority of people will assume because it is a logical assumption based on the experience with many other software projects. It's the intuitive interpretation of seeing a version XX.YY or XX.YY.ZZ. A logical consequence of what I have just said is the following: If we treat all officially released openSUSE distributions as equal in terms of importance, quality etc, then we should use a version string that reflects such a situation, i.e. the version string should only have a single identifier (I have seen various proposals, from year/month based schemes to theme-based names to Roman numbers to plain Arabic numbers, and so on). There's one rule in software development that can be found in many books on software project management. In a nutshell, the rule states that software should be simple and intuitive. Unfortunately, I think we violate this rule with the old and the new versioning scheme. If I understand your proposal correctly, you would like to follow the Fedora way and call the major versions 12 (13, 14, ...) etc (or 12.0, 13.0, 14.0, ..., respectively). Updates (that means the original version plus the patches that have been shipped up to that point) would be released as .1, .2, .3 and so on in regular intervals. Correct? I think from a theoretical point of view this would work fine because the approach clearly follows the major/minor scheme. The first number is the major version number, the second number reflects the minor release (the update level, so to speak). However, I don't know a) how feasible it is in terms of available resources and required effort, and b) how useful the approach is in general (i.e. the cost/benefit ratio). In principle, all that users save in this way is some download volume for the first "online update" after an initial install, right? Unfortunately, I don't know how difficult it is to create the ISOs etc but I guess that your proposal might fall a bit short when it comes to the cost(effort)/benefit ratio. Kind regards, Thomas -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-project+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-project+help@opensuse.org