Version Numbering

[Christian Stimming]

Dear Chris,

thanks for bringing up this question. In fact there are different views on 
this topic around. I consider the version number as part of our marketing 
communication to potential users. As such, the first-most number of our 
software should represent something that is meaningful to the users. And it 
should change as soon as something major that is meaningful to the users is 
changed.

I've simply seen enough users who can't tell whether there is a version 2.2 or 
2.4 or 22 or 24 or whatever of gnucash on their computer. They could for sure 
tell whether they have version 2-something or 3-something. But the next number 
is just magnitudes less important. Hence, we should use the important part of 
the version number as our product marketing in a useful way.

Because of this, I am against the idea that we have to stick to the first 
number "2" unless we have a major architectural change or some other whatever 
major technological yadda yadda change inside gnucash. Instead, from my point 
of view we should consider incrementing our first version number from 2 to 3 
at some not-too-distant point in the future, as soon as this number change 
would represent something useful for the user. For example, a gnucash version 
that is multi-user-enabled would be enough of a reason to call that "version 
3.something". Note that I don't care at all which technology was used to 
achieve this feature.

Thing is, we can expect all users to tell whether their gnucash version number 
starts with 2 or 3. But the number after that is already something that can be 
remembered by only a minority of the users. Why should we easily let go of the 
powerful communication tool to tell whether someone has a newer or older 
version of the software? Instead, IMHO we should keep in mind to switch to 
version 3.x within the next 1-3 years, as soon as we have enough user-visible 
to justify this change.

Regards,

Christian

Am Sonntag, 22. März 2015, 11:51:57 schrieb Chris Good:
> > we want to project for user recruitment. "Enormous", "Earth-shaking", and
> > so on sound silly. How about "!
> > 
> >  Global" or "Fundamental" to indicate that the way the program works is
> > 
> > different from before?
> > 
> > Regards,
> > John Ralls
> 
> Thanks for picking up my 'faux pas' re odd/even numbering (temporary brain
> fade I hope).
> 
> I've done a little research on version numbering best practices.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning is quite interesting.
> 
> Some of the commonly used version numbering schemes include:
> 
> Major.Minor.[buildno|bugfix|revision|patch]
> Framework.Major.Minor
> 
> I totally agree with Geert that the 2nd level should be Major, not Minor.
> John mentioned 'architectural changes' and I quite like
> Architecture.Major.Minor although I prefer Framework.Major.Minor.
> 
> What does everybody think?