(left out something from this message...)

On Tuesday, April 15, 2003, at 12:22 AM, Doug Way wrote:

> On Sunday, April 13, 2003, at 06:20 AM, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
>
>> Am Sonntag, 13.04.03 um 07:41 Uhr schrieb Doug Way:
>>
>>> Basically my only problem with this is that any stable version 
>>> number should refer to only one thing, IMHO.  So, if the "3.4" 
>>> release refers to the image with updates to 5170, then the image 
>>> released with the extra fixes beyond that (to update 5173) should 
>>> have a different name of some sort.  It could be "3.4.1", or "3.4 
>>> patch 1", or "3.5".  But we shouldn't keep the name as "3.4"... if 
>>> someone says they're using a "3.4" release it should mean one and 
>>> only one thing.  This is how software/OS/programming-language 
>>> releases generally work.
>>
>> Not quite. This is the whole point of having a hierarchical version 
>> number system. 3.4 means *any* version of 3.4. When someone says he's 
>> running a Linux 2.2 kernel I know what to expect. Only when specific 
>> bugs are addressed I have to inquire about the point version - "yeah, 
>> that was fixed in 2.2.16".
>
> Right.  That's why I like a version number like "3.4.1" for this, 
> because it implies that it is a 3.4-compatible release.  The idea 
> being that it has only important bugfixes, so that 99+% of 
> packages/changesets which work with 3.4 will also work with 3.4.1. 
> (assuming further bugs weren't introduced in 3.4.1, which would 
> necessitate a 3.4.2 release, etc.)  Whereas typically only 80-90% 
> (just a guess) of packages will survive a full minor release update, 
> such as moving from 3.5 to 3.6.

And just so it's clear, we would prefer to have as few of these 
tertiary releases as possible.  Somehow you have to define what 
qualifies as an "important" enough bugfix to warrant an extra 
mini-release.  The two fixes in 3.5 are good examples of ones which are 
important enough, IMHO.  But we don't want to start sticking all sorts 
of minor bug fixes in these tertiary releases.

One minimum criterion for an "important" bugfix might be that the bug 
has to appear during that release.  (e.g. For a bugfix to warrant a 
3.6.1 release, the bug has to occur sometime during 
3.6alpha/beta/gamma.)

Also, we probably wouldn't do the usual PR thing for these tertiary 
releases.

- Doug Way