[asterisk-users] Opinions on Release Numbering

[Tilghman Lesher]

On Wednesday 10 October 2007 12:54:42 Russell Bryant wrote:
> I have been having discussions with various members of the development
> community in regards to changes to the way we manage open source Asterisk
> releases.  The changes that we eventually decide on will determine how we
> manage the 1.6 version of Asterisk.  I will be posting much more detailed
> information about 1.6 in the near future.
>
> What I'm looking for right now is some opinions on version numbering.  Part
> of the working plan for Asterisk 1.6 involves making release candidates for
> every 1.6.X release, so that various community members can help with doing
> regression testing on the changes before making the release.
>
> I proposed calling the release candidates 1.6.3-rc1, 1.6.3-rc2, etc.

One of the problems with this traditional approach is that it's not obvious
unless you know what "rc" means.  In the case of someone new to software
development, I want them never to assume that "1.6.0-rc2" means "1.6.0
plus something else, presumably desireable to have".  Note that this isn't
without precedence; netatalk was distributed for years as netatalk-1.3+asun.
It would be perfectly reasonable to assume that "rc" was someone's initials.

> Another proposal has been using 1.5 to indicate that it is a release
> candidate. For example, 1.5.3, 1.5.3.1, 1.5.3.2, etc., would be the release
> candidates for the upcoming 1.6.3 release.

This method is no less obvious than "rc1" for the untrained and ensures that
people who do not wish to become guinea pigs will remain out of that arena
(i.e. if they only choose the version that sorts to the bottom of the
directory, they will always be running a release).

The universal problem is that we'd like people who know little to pick the
right version, with no training (and yes, the system using "rc" to indicate
release candidates is also a matter of training, the abbreviation is not
obvious to the untrained).

-- 
Tilghman