[Axiom-developer] Version Numbers and Linus

[daly]

I found this truly amusing, especially the comments:

<http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/08/07/16/1310239.shtml>

Quoting:

  In a recent thread it was asked what it would take for an 'unstable' 2.7
  development tree to be created, to which Linus replied: 'Nothing. I'm not 
  going back to the old model. The new model is so much better that its not
  even worth entertaining as a theory to go back. That said, I_am_ considering
  changing just the numbering. Not to go back to the old model, but because
  a constantly increasing minor number leads to big numbers. I'm not all that
  thrilled with "26" as a number: it's hard to remember. I think the 
  time-based releases (ie the "2 weeks of merge window until -rc1, followed
  by roughly two months of stabilization") has been so successful that I'd
  prefer to skip the version numbering model too. We don't do releases based
  on "features" any more, so why should we do version_numbering_ based on
  "features"?

Needless to say, the comments are quite funny. 

As you know, the Axiom releases are "numbered" by Month-Year as in "May 2008".
I've been releasing Axiom every 2 months for the last few years (modulo
some storms) so the "version" refers to the month and year of the release.
Development is done in git so particular versions can be exactly recovered
from the git HEAD numbers.

Tim