OS versioning

[Michael Stone]

On Fri, Aug 22, 2008 at 06:18:47AM +0100, victor wrote:
>Hello everyone,
>
>I was trying to find the correct info on OS versioning in the wiki, but
>could not. So perhaps you can enlighten me?

There's some information at [[Release process home]] on the wiki. I
also have some detailed (and amusing) diagrams on the subject that I
haven't managed to really finish off. Remind me when I'm awake to dig
them up for you.

>1.Why version 8.* ?

8.2 == 'second major release of 2008'. (Major releases begin new
"periods of support" where "support" means that "you can ask us to make
minor releases for you based on X").

>2.Last release was 8.1, we are going towards 8.2, I see that, but
>was 8.1 FC7-based or FC8? Is 8.2 FC9-based?

8.2.* is based on F-9.

7.2.* and 8.1.* (i.e. official-650, official-653, official-656,
official-703, official-708, official-711) are all based on F-7.

>3. How are olpc-2 and olpc-3 (the names of distros in
>Koji) related to OS versions?

OLPC-2 is the second OLPC buildroot. OLPC-3 is the third OLPC buildroot.
Buildroots contain (mostly fixed) sets of packages used to construct the
controlled environment used for building other packages.

dist-olpc3 is a koji tag which is built on top of the OLPC-3 buildroot.

We're going to do things slightly differently for 9.1.0 or 9.2.0 release
in that we intend to start off with a koji tag like dist-olpc4-rawhide
tracking Fedora's Rawhide, then, eventually, freeze it when F-11 (or so)
is released. This way, we'll have an easier time rebasing our remaining
divergence onto the new Fedora revision.

>4. How do build numbers, stable/joyride, relate to OS versions?

Releases (e.g. things named 7.1.*, 7.2.*, 8.1.*, 8.2.*, 9.1.*, etc)
contain signed reference operating systems w/ no activities, signed
derivative images w/ activities, customization keys, release notes,
engineering change-order documentation, etc.

Therefore, there's no automatic mapping between releases and build
numbers.

Build streams, like 'joyride', 'faster', 'sugar', 'rainbow', 'xtest',
'meshtest', etc. are just convenient monikers for collections of related
builds. Joyride, in particular, is important because it's the central
development tree comparable to other distributions' notion of 'rawhide'
or 'unstable'.

>I need to make sure I get this all clear in my head.

It's a bit of a morass. Unfortunately, I don't have any good ideas on
how to simplify it! (Suggestions welcome... sort-of.)

Michael