Build Debate: Followup on Build Naming

[Martin Langhoff]

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 11:38 AM, Walter Bender <walter.bender at gmail.com> wrote:
>  As far as a feature-based scheme, that will just increase the pressure
>  to do an end-run around our renewed pledge to do time-based releases.
>
>  I'm in favor of Dennis's suggestion. OLPC-1; OLPC-2, ... It is simple
>  and, I argue, unambiguous. The hardware is XO-1, XO-2...

I generally agree but rather than just incrementing numbers, we can
use the opportunity to use it to communicate api, stability and
feature deltas. After having worked in projects with many schemes, I
find that the best communicator is  a 3-part release name x.y.z
where...

  - X is the "major" release name. Many projects stay in 0 until the
first feature-complete/stable-api release comes out the door to claim
"1".
 - Y is the minor feature incremental version
 - Z is the bugfix level

So
 - 0.3.2 means we are on our way to feature-complete, this is the 3rd
add-feature release, 2nd bugfix release
 - 1.0.4 is the release you want to put on machines in a country with
areas so remote that you can only visit for an upgrade every 2 years
 - 1.5.0 means we are on a stable api, 5th feature release, just
issued. Conservative people may wish to wait until 1.5.2 for example,
unless something in the 1.5.0 changelog is a "must have" feature.
 - 2.0 means some APIs have changed, your Sugarized app is very likely
to break.

While we crank out builds and while in development we can call them
anything, the important thing is the label on the release. It is the
most succint means of communication with decision-makers, big and
small. As such it should be a clear indication of what kind of things
I'll find in the changelog, specially for those users that will not
read the changelog.

cheers,



martin
-- 
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 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
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