Re: Proposal: Debian release numbers

[Martin Michlmayr <tbm@cyrius.com>]

I think one of the most important things to keep in mind when
proposing to change something which is exposed to every user (like
release numbers) is that one should be conservative.  Our release
number scheme shouldn't be changed on a whim but only with good
reasons.  People claim that every release of Debian is a major
release.  Yet, I argue that this is way too early to tell.  It has
often been claimed that testing will allow quicker release cycles.
That hasn't happened yet, but perhaps it will.  We simply don't know
yet.  And it would be fatal to change our scheme now and later realize
that it was a bad idea.

Everyone who participates in this thread should read
http://lwn.net/Articles/19066/ (still protected, free of charge to all on
2003-01-16).  I think it's fair use to quote the conclusion, which I
think is absolutely relevant to this thread:

    Whatever the scheme, we can only hope that each distribution provider
    picks one scheme and sticks to it, so that DistroX 20021103 doesn't
    become DistroX 3.2 next.

To summarize: we don't know if every Debian release will be a major
release.  If the next release is major, call it 4.0.  If the next is
major again, call it 5.0.  There is no need to change anything.

-- 
Martin Michlmayr
tbm@cyrius.com