linux-kernel - Re: [RFC] Kernel version numbering scheme change

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Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.1.10.0810171821500.11079@asgard.lang.hm>
Date:	Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:23:59 -0700 (PDT)
From:	david@...g.hm
To:	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@...k.pl>
cc:	Greg KH <greg@...ah.com>, Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Steven Noonan <steven@...inklabs.net>,
	Adrian Bunk <bunk@...nel.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [RFC] Kernel version numbering scheme change

On Sat, 18 Oct 2008, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:

> On Friday, 17 of October 2008, Greg KH wrote:
>> On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 08:47:23PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote:
>>>> And that's my point here, do we want to change the current numbering
>>>> scheme as people have expressed annoyances of the current one.
>>>
>>> But any new scheme will be just as annoying to someone and it messes up
>>> existing documentation, understanding and risks breaking third party
>>> tools.
>>>
>>> Is it really worth the hassle, plus we'll have to change again if we use
>>> date/times because once we are shipping Linux out to Alpha Centauri with
>>> colonists there will be serious problems trying to compute the effect of
>>> tau on release numbering ...
>>
>> Sure, but by then, the 2.6.521 release will be out and we could fix it
>> up by finally going to 3.0 :)
>
> Surely some scripts will start to break as soon as the third number gets
> three digits.

we've had three digit numbers in the third position before (2.3 and 2.5 
went well past three digits IIRC)

>> Seriously, am I the only one that is getting annoyed by our version
>> numbers?  If so, I can live with it, but I got the feeling that I wasn't
>> alone here.
>
> Actually, I thought we could continue to use a w.x.y.z numbering scheme, but
> in such a way that:
>
> w = ($year - 2000) / 10 + 2 (so that we start from 2)
> x = $year % 10
> y = (number of major release in $year)
> z = (number of stable version for major release w.x.y)
>
> Then, the first major release in 2009 would be 2.9.1 and its first -stable
> "child" would become 2.9.1.1.  In turn, the first major release in 2010 could
> be 3.0.1 and so on.

if you want the part of the version number to increment based on the year, 
just make it the year and don't complicate things.

David Lang
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