[U-Boot-Users] Release numbering (was Merge Window Closed.)

[Jerry Van Baren <gerald.vanbaren@smiths-aerospace.com>]

Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> In message <46D2FEB0.6090900@googlemail.com> you wrote:
>> What's about a u-boot-1.3.0-rc1 tag in git and a 
>> u-boot-1.3.0-rc1.tar.bz2 on ftp server?
> 
> Will do that. But I want to integrate the  first  round  of  feedback
> first.  There  are way too many show-stopper bugs in the current code
> to call it a release candidate. If I just had a little more time...
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Wolfgang Denk

What about adopting Ubuntu's philosophy and numbering by year and month Y.M?
   <http://www.ubuntu.com/aboutus/faq>

This has the disadvantage of not clearly marking major changes 
(discontinuities) e.g.   1.x -> 2.0 or 1.2.y -> 1.3.0.  Assuming there 
are no earth-shattering discontinuities in the future, that isn't a 
problem.  I'm not sure we are "there" yet, but u-boot has been around 
and refined for quite some time now and the changes have become a lot 
more incremental (or maybe I've just become more comfortable with it?).

On the "advantages" side...

1) It acknowledges that u-boot (as with most open source projects) is 
subject to continuous rolling improvement.

2) It eliminates the debate of whether the major or just the minor 
number needs to be rolled.

3) When someone says "my build based on version 7.8 is broken" we can 
scale our scorn based on how old the release is without having to look 
it up.  ;-)

4) This is also in line with Linus's current philosophy that the kernel 
will be 2.6.xxxxxx forever.  (I suspect this won't hold literally true 
forever, I predict the "2.6" prefix will eventually be dropped.)

Going to date-based numbering makes a lot of sense to me.

Best regards,
gvb