On Wed, 23 Apr 2003, Jaka Jejcic wrote:

> > But you're thinking like a developer. The point is that we have a lot of
> > users who don't, and who get confused by how we are doing things. I think
> > we really need to make _A_ change in how we do things, though I'm not 100%
> > sure if this numbering is it.
>
> Developers we are. And NetBSD is for developers and people who are willing
> to learn the rules if they'll make their life easier afterwards.

Why? Why are we just developers? Sure, there are a lot of developers (and
more so on this list), but why should NetBSD be only for developers?

> We do have rules (about numbering) that _I_ believe are logical. We have

But the whole issue is that works for you and for me doesn't work for
others. As long as we do just what works for us, we'll not change.

> RELEASES, STABLE and CURRENT branches which is great. Furthermore
> release and stable are named in the same manner (which again is absolutely
> normal since stable is improvement of release) maybe we could just add
> something like FreeBSD's stable tag to it to differenciate it from release.
> But the CURRENT branch is something special. It should actually exist only
> one CURRENT (and in reality that's the case) but it is much easier to talk
> about current development if we introduce some sort of _internal_ naming.
> ===> that's exactly what we have with the number part of the name
> the first (numeric) part shows you when was the last time the release was
> branched, and the alpha part shows you where we are in the current development.
>
> It's kindda neat ;)

No, our numbering scheme for CURRENT isn't neat, it's the whole problem.
:-)

> > I think it's important since the folks who get the most confused are
> > usually just checking NetBSD out; the kind of folks who are trying to
> > learn if they shoul care about NetBSD.
>
> That shouldn't be the problem since they shouldn't care about current stuff.

While the "shouldn't", that's not realistic. If you want the new cool
stuff, you have to run -current. If you have a machine which is only
supported in -current (or use components only in -current), you have to
use current. We want to have more releases to reduce this pressure, but we
keep adding things that need shaking out (ELF for 1.5, UBC for 1.6,
pthreads for 2.0), so we get delayed.

> > > i personally find the current scheme fine and the odd/even version
> > > naming is actually *more* confusing, imho.
> >
> > The problem isn't if it makes sense to you, or to me. It's what makes the
> > most sense to everyone, both current and future users.
>
> Making most sense to everyone does not necessary mean making most sense the
> first time they encounter the _thing_. In NetBSD terminology we could say
> that it makes most sense when you get acquainted with it.

Yes, that's what we have now. And having something that makes sense the
first time you encounter it is what I think we should strive for.

Take care,

Bill