On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 05:16:18PM -0800, Tom Ball wrote: > On Mon, 2003-03-24 at 14:44, Marie-Thérèse Lorentzen wrote: > > I'm no expert in the area, however, my understanding of upgrades is that the > > general convention for at hop from on number to another would be a 'major' > > change in a kernal/a new look/ or something that separates it from the > > previous number/numners. If the hop is several numbers, then this would > > indicate an even greater change. A "dot" change/update/upgrade is generally > > for less significant changes. > > As someone else commented, a release number is just that, a number > created by marketing. Often they choose numbers based on the reasoning > you state above, other times contracts determine it, but there is no > convention. As long as a release number encourages you to upgrade, the > marketing drones have done their job, regardless of how unfathomable > their choice is to those of us with basic math skills. :-) There are some conventions that are generally followed by those who manage software releases. A MAJOR revision is generally incompatible in some way to the previous Major release number. In Red Hat's case they have always CONSISTANTLY updated the Major number when there are binary incompatibilities. As is the case with the RH 9 release. My personal standard for release numbers with form a.b.c a - major release - changes when incompatible b - minor release - enhancements - new features that don't break anything c - patch - security updates, bug fixes, no new features. Chuck -- Psyche-list mailing list Psyche-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/psyche-list
