Hi, On Tue, Jan 07, 2003 at 08:03:45AM -0500, H. S. Teoh wrote: > On Tue, Jan 07, 2003 at 09:20:54AM +0000, Scott James Remnant wrote: > [snip] > > Debian stable releases will be identified by their code name and a > > single release number, starting at the next whole number (4) and > > incrementing it for each new stable release. The next stable release > > would therefore be "Debian 4 (sarge)", the release after "Debian 5 > > (etch)", and so on. > > > > Revisions of the stable release, which currently use the "X.YrZ" form of > > release number, would instead append and increment a minor number to the > > release. The first revision of sarge would therefore be "Debian 4.1 > > (sarge)", the second "Debian 4.2 (sarge)", and so on. > > I agree with this. There is no reason to have a version of the form X.Y > unless there is some meaning to the ".Y" part. I think the minor updates > (our present r1, r2, etc.) are precisely in line with the "minor changes" > in the Linux kernel numbering system, and hence should correspond with the > ".Y" part of the version number. I disagree. Debian seems to have much more strict requirements for 'r' releases than the Linux kernel for stable revisions. Linux allows features to be backported, debian does not. 'r' just fixes bugs. That this is confusing to the user is because appallingly few software packages have cleanly separated tracks for bugfixes and functionality updates. We should evangelize on 'r', not get rid of it. There is also no good reason whatsoever to get rid of the current scheme. It can do everything that a major-only scheme can do, plus allow smaller releases to be made in the future. If for, say 4 consecutive releases, only X.0 releases are made (with their 'r' fixes), perhaps /then/ it would be time to say that Debian never uses the ability to indicate a smaller difference to the previous release and that we may want to get rid of it. But IMHO, that time is not there yet, not by a long shot. It doesn't matter that it's been years, it matters that the major release just before this one (2) had several minor releases following. In short, I see no benefit whatsoever in changing the scheme. I'd rather that more software adopt this flexible scheme. Cheers, Emile. -- E-Advies / Emile van Bergen | emile@e-advies.info tel. +31 (0)70 3906153 | http://www.e-advies.info
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