On Thu, 2 Dec 2004, Jan Schaumann wrote:

> "Aaron J. Grier" <agrier@poofygoof.com> wrote:
>> On Wed, Dec 01, 2004 at 09:53:06PM -0500, Todd Vierling wrote:
>>> 2.1, not 2.0.1, will be the first patch release off of the netbsd-2-0
>>> branch.  (Yes, it's kind of funny that 2.1 will come from the
>>> netbsd-2-0 branch, but that's now a historical curiosity :).  The next
>>> branch will be the start of NetBSD 3.0.
>>
>> so the "major.minor.patch" numbering scheme dissapearing?
>
> http://www.netbsd.org/Changes/#nr-scheme-changes

It has happened, and that's that.
I think it's unfortunate.

Previously we had:
1.6 - the base for the 1.6 branch.
1.6<letter> - further development from 1.6 to whatever next release was.
               (minor or major)
1.6.<digit> - official releases with fixes on the 1.6 branch.

If code needed some system service that was implemented first in 1.6, they 
could easily check if __NetBSD_Version__ > 106000000, and it worked, even 
if you happened to running -current.

Now, all of a sudden, if you are running current, you're basically shot. 
You'll have 299rrpp00, while when 2.1 comes out, it will have 201rrpp00. 
Yet, 2.1 might very well have stuff that -current of today don't have.
So, code that works on 2.1 will not be able to figure out that it won't 
work in a -current that isn't up to date, and that will be true until 
NetBSD 3.0 comes out, at which time all -current which are still at 2 will 
be regarded as "old".

In short, previously, you could tell at which place in the order of 
releases a -current snapshot was located. Now you can't.
What you have gained is that people will hopefully understand that 2.99 is 
development in work, and not an official release, as opposed to 2.1, or 
2.17.

That might however backfire, since now it's not even a different format, 
as it was before, but instead it's a question of interpreting the number 
as special.

Oh well. Just my $.02

 	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt@update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol