[Axiom-developer] Re: Version numbers

[Bill Page]

> Ralf Hemmecke writes:
>
> > Bill Page wrote:
> > > I guess it's time I planned on creating an 'axiom-0.2' binary install 
> file...
> >
> > I am a bit confused about the version number. NAG released 2.3. Didn't we
> > once say that the current gold version is Axiom 3.0? What versioning
> > scheme does OpenAxiom now actually have? Does somebody know?
> > Where is this written down?

Yes, I think this was tentatively agreed upon and it appears in at
least one "released" version of open source Axiom (maybe the first?),
but it seems that this was promptly forgotten or re-defined by Tim as
he issued subsequent releases. Since defining new releases has so far
only been the job of one person - Tim - then I guess it remains up to
him until/if someone else wants to take on the job.

On 23 Jun 2007 09:16:23 +0200, Martin Rubey wrote:
> Since Axiom is and very likely will be for a long time rapidly evolving, I 
> suggest
> to use yymm versioning.  I was hoping that trunk would become usable (i.e.,
> very close to wh-sandbox) soon, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

It seems the contrary to stated intentions, the update of the Gold and
Silver versions of Axiom effectively remains under the control of only
one person - Tim. So again as I see it, Tim remains the primary
bottleneck for getting these changes done. Perhaps this is not his
intention however I think his approach of using a separate repository
(based on git) and insisting on doing all updates via manual patches,
effectively discourages other developers from contributing directly to
the Gold or Silver versions. (See for example recent revisions
submitted by Gaby which he was asked to revert pending something
similar to be done by Tim.)  I do not see much incentive contribute to
these older "official" versions of Axiom versus continuing changes to
the build-improvements and wh-sandbox branches even though they remain
essentially only "experimental".

> Gold is currently completely uninteresting for me and my math colleagues: no
> working HyperDoc, many important algebra fixes are missing, etc., etc.

I agree completely. Gold does not even build on Windows.

> I have the feeling that "trunk" and "branches" is somewhat unfitting for the
> Axiom project.  Currently, wh-sandbox seems most useable to me.

Although no one has named it as such, I think effectively we have the
situation of a "fork" in the Axiom sources.

> (Waldek: the only remaining thing on my wishlist is to have out of the box
> aldor support)

Does this still have to wait until we have Aldor as open source?

Regards,
Bill Page.