[rfc] six-month stable release cycles

[Martin Pool]

2009/8/4 Matthew D. Fuller <fullermd at over-yonder.net>:
> On Sun, Aug 02, 2009 at 06:49:43PM +0100 I heard the voice of
> Brian de Alwis, and lo! it spake thus:
>>
>> FWIW: The Eclipse project avoid numbering issues by calling
>> development releases "milestones".  Each formal release consists of
>> a  milestone period for introducing new functionality (e.g., 3.5M1,
>> 3.5M2, ...), followed usually a set of release candidates for
>> ironing  out bugs (3.5RC1, ... 3.5RC4), of which the last is
>> (hopefully)  promoted as the GA for general availability (R3.5).
>
> This can cause ordering problems with tools.  Packaging systems may
> well be of the opinion that "3.5M1" is 'newer' than "3.5".

The Python convention for putting versions in tuples (see
bzrlib/__init__.py) has a field that can be 'alpha', 'beta',
'candidate' or 'final' (or we also allow 'dev'.)  All else being equal
I'd rather stick with that system, and with what's presumably standard
practice in other Python systems.


-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>