On Sun, 2003-04-13 at 07:41, Doug Way wrote:

> A name like "3.4-5173" is not acceptable 
> either, IMHO, for a stable release intended for a wide audience.
> 
Well, there are numerous commercial products that have something like
that. Just make sure you de-emphasize the '5173' bit. 3.4 (patchlevel
5173) or better

33333           4
     3         4
     3        4
  333        4   4
     3      444444
     3 ..        4
33333  ..        4  (build 5173)

;-)

If you just make sure that the 'canonical image' provided on the
official FTP servers always reflects the latest patch level (easily done
and made clear with symbolic links on the servers), I bet your average
user won't be confused.

I think that we need to understand that people have come to think of 

product name = name + version number

and that 'product name' (like Squeak 3.4) stands for a feature set (we
call it X and we promise you Y under that label). As long as you don't
break the feature set, I think it's ok to keep the product name the
same. 

Maybe it's even time to drop the thing behind the dot and just call it
Squeak v3 as long as the image format stays the same and you don't do
any other very serious things (breaking out packages, IMHO, is not
serious enough). Then, in the small print, you can mention that what you
just downloaded is actually 'Squeak v3 (3.4 patchlevel 5173)', and you
can just silently upgrade to 3.5, 3.6, 3.42, 3.42.1 (we always stop
numbering at 42 here, for some reason, and then add an extra dot ;-))
based on technical decisions like Squeakmap visibility, project
management, and whatnot. If you do that, no need for press releases and
fanfare, we'll keep that for when Squeak v4 comes out...

(because that's another issue - we just fanfared 3.4 into the world. Do
I need to pull the trumpets for 3.5? Nay... These guys get enough press
releases on their desks, if they see a Squeak press release for every
minor dot release they'll probably will quickly learn to ignore Squeak
press releases. That's another factor I'd like to be taken into
consideration in the decision process about versions).

(yes, another late reaction - therefore, I'm not discussing the decision
to put out 3.5, it was taken in all openness so nobody can complain;
just trying to look at the future. The future is bright ;-))

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