Re: EMC version numbers

[Ray <rehenry-at-up.net>]

On Thu, 14 Sep 2000, Fred wrote:
<snipped>
> Any votes on this proposal:
> 
> 1. Number releases with major.minor-bug, with no leading zeroes, not
> associated with dates;
> 
> 2. Label release files as:
> 
> 	emc-<major>.<minor>-<bug>.src.tgz (compressed tar format for sources)
> 	emc-<major>.<minor>-<bug>.src.rpm (RPM format for sources)
> 	emc-<major>.<minor>-<bug>.<plat>-RT<RT Linux version>.tgz
> 	emc-<major>.<minor>-<bug>.<plat>-RT<RT Linux version>.rpm
> 
> which yields for the next release:
> 
> 	emc-1.1-1.src.{tgz,rpm}
> 	emc-1.1-1.i386-RT0.9J.{tgz,rpm} (RT 0.9J implies kernel 2.0.36)
> 	emc-1.1-1.i386-RT2.2.{tgz,rpm} (RT 2.2 implies kernel 2.2.14)

We have a kind of tradition here of putting out periodic releases rather
than feature based releases.  Will's experience with RCS should at least
come to play in our thinking about any meaning that we might assign
to release numbers.  Releases represent succession rather than stability
or feature or fix.  Many are still using Nov-99.

M2CW - We could get around the base 12 problem and the floating point
problem if we simply scheduled 10 releases a year.   Folk who wanted that
awwesome new feature before it hit the next release could "roll their
own" from SourceForge.  Scheduled releases might encourage we developers
to get it together before the next release.  

I'm a little foggy this morning but doesn't:

	emc-"year"."release"

gives us an unambiguous number until y3k as long as release is between
0-9.  Such a scheme would preserve some of the dating of releases without
causing great pain for for someone who might want to compute something
from the number of the file. 
 
> 3. The install/RPM scripts generate a file in the emc/ directory, called
> "emcversion", containing the archive file name and version information
> in a pre-parsed format to make it easier, e.g.:
> 
> Package: emc-1.1-1.i386-RT2.2.rpm
> Version: 1.1-1
> Platform: i386
> Kernel Version: 2.2.14
> RT Version: NMT 2.2

Regardless of how we number the release, having a text file
(emc/emcversion) in a format like this, generated by the install or RPM 
will be a great help.  This seems to answer most all of my concerns. 

Ray