Re: [Freeciv-Dev] version numbers

[Greg Wooledge <wooledge@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Nicolas Brunel (brunel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) wrote:

> It's a very good and easy to do idea !
> 1.8.2 even unstable, it's cvs version.
> 1.8.3 odd stable, distribution version.

That's not a bad idea, but it may cause some confusion.  It bears some
resemblance to the way the Linux kernels are numbered, but the details
are different.  So, a lot of people may assume that Freeciv has followed
the Linux numbering, and get confused.

The Linux kernel numbering works like this: for kernel X.Y.Z, if Y is
even then it's a stable kernel; if Y is odd, it's development.  When a
new stable kernel series is released (e.g., 2.2.0) the code is forked,
and a new development series is started at the same time (e.g., 2.3.0).
Then the development continues in the development series, with only
small fixes going into the stable series.  (At least in theory. ;-)  In
practice, the stable series tends not to be as stable as Linus hoped,
and takes a few patches to get up to speed....)

The GTK+ toolkit (and glib) also use Linux kernel numbering.  I think the
GIMP does as well, but I'm not positive.

For Freeciv, I don't think we really want to maintain a separate
development series and stable series.  It's too much hassle and overhead.
But at the very least, if you're going to use oddness, you should probably
use even for stable and odd for unstable -- people will be less surprised
that way.

-- 
Greg Wooledge                    | Distributed.NET http://www.distributed.net/
wooledge@xxxxxxxxxxx             | because a CPU is a terrible thing to waste.
http://www.kellnet.com/wooledge/ |