[Mifos-developer] Version numbers

[Youssef A. <you...@gm...>]

Just to raise something I've often considered, I was wondering if
there's any intent of adopting a more commonly understood version
numbering scheme?

It's typical in open source to employ an X.Y.Z.a version string where:

X => major version number, often incremented to indicate very material
advances in functionality (not bugfixing), or to signify breaking
backwards compatibility

Y => minor version number, incremented with each significant release
not
amounting to a material functionality improvement - one thing I like
seeing with this number is using odd numbers for development branches
and even numbers for stable branches a la Linux kernel

Z => usually patch level, incremented when you need to make a new
release but really haven't changed all that much, which is why you
usually get this kind of release when there's a security fix you want
to
plug as quickly as possible

a => A "brown bag" release. Appended occasionally to the X.Y.Z version
string as a mark of shame that we the developers did something stupid
(the open source equivalent of tar and feathers, I think)

While not all open source projects use this scheme, I think it's fair
to
say that just about any open source person will be intimate with this
scheme (including conventions, such as pre-1.0 software being
considered
unstable).

Thoughts?




Youssef