Re: should etch be Debian 4.0 ?

[Johan Kullstam <kullstj-ml@comcast.net>]

Mark Fletcher <mark27q1@yahoo.com> writes:

> On Sunday 10 July 2005 21:55, Joris Huizer wrote:
> > Johan Kullstam wrote:
> > > Let me see if I understand you correctly.  Your
> > > reason for having the ambiguity of wether to call
> > > it 3.2 or 4.0 is just to keep people from assigning
> > > etch a number?
> >
> > I think this is quite logical, as there is some
> > structure in those numbers - 4.0 means a big leap,
> > 3.2 means "smaller " change; nobody can tell right
> > now how big the step is from sarge to etch, as it's
> > development has just started
> > ofcourse, it's just up to the debian development team
> > to decide wether the changes are big enough to call
> > it 4.0 (anyone know why sarge became 3.1?)
> >
> > just some thoughts
> >
> > Joris
> 
> I'd add that it's not deliberate ambiguity as a means to 
> any particular end, so much as it not being an 
> appropriate stage of the development of etch for the 
> decision to be made if a major or minor version upgrade 
> is appropriate. This does matter; this list wouldn't 
> take long to hear from a whole tribe of people with 
> nothing better to do than complain about unimportant 
> things if they decided it was to be 3.2 now and then it 
> turned out that the changes were massive and the 
> upgrade path difficult... likewise if they decided 4.0 
> now and then it turned out the changes were small and 
> relatively minor .

Are people really going to look at the version number and say, "I've
got sarge now and since new number is 3.2 i'll upgrade but if it were
4.0 i'd sit still?"  Have people done this in the past?

Releases come every 3-4 years so why not let the release notes explain
the changes.  A version number might make sense for automated things
where cron downloads and installs a minor increment but not major
one.  This is so seldom that manual intervention isn't too much to ask
for.

Since the difference is subtle, why have the distinction?  Why not use
next release is 4.0 and the one after that 5.0 and so on *no matter
how small the update*?

-- 
Johan KULLSTAM