Re: Octave version number scheme

[Rik]

On 03/22/2018 08:13 AM, address@hidden wrote:
> Rationale
>
> This change allows to more easily identify GCC versions by giving each of
> the development phases distinctive versions. The change also takes
> advantage of the fact that previously the GCC major number carried little
> to no useful information.
>
> My reasons for wanting to make this change:
>
>   * Using this numbering scheme would eliminate the "+"
>     from the version number that we have been using.
>
>   * It would also make the major version number meaningful again.
>
>   * And, it would allow us to distinguish the stable development
>     version from the released stable version.  We don't currently
>     do anything about that, so for example, after we released
>     4.2.1, the stable branch also had that version number for
>     over a year.
>
> With this numbering scheme:
>
>   * Any version X.0.0 means "this is an experimental development
>     version".
>
>   * Any version X.Y.1 means, "this is a pre-release version meant
>     for bug fixing and testing".
>
>   * Any version X.Y.0 with Y != 0 means "this is a released version".
>
> Comments? 
We should do better than what we have now.  The '+' character is fairly
awful since it breaks things tools that are expecting only numeric version
numbers.  If I can restate, the scheme would be MAJOR . MINOR . FLAG.  Flag
would be 0 or 1 to indicate development or release candidate.  Or would we
increment FLAG for every release candidate such that for stabilization,
FLAG=1 and corresponds to rc1, FLAG=2 corresponds to rc2, etc.?

When would the major number change?  I know Google and its "fail fast"
mantra have led to new major releases of their software every 6 weeks which
I find excessive.  Would we be changing to a yearly release cycle and a
yearly increment in the major number?  Or is it possible that there are no
large API changes for a given year and we only update the minor release?

--Rik