Release dates

[Duncan Coutts]

On Wed, 2009-04-29 at 13:25 +0200, Luis Cabellos wrote:
> Maybe, it worth to change releases number to time-based numbering
> 
> e.g:
>   * 2009.05.04   instead 2009.2.0
>   * 2009.06.01   instead 2009.2.1
>   * 2009.07.13   instead 2009.2.2

Not all releases are equal. We need an indication of major/minor
releases. There are supposed to be two major releases every year (ie
every 6 months). Minor releases are API compatible. We need to be able
to see that in the version number.

However we also need to be able to identify testing pre-releases. Hence
the suggestion for odd/even. $date.1.x and $date.3.x being testing
pre-releases for $date.2.0 and $date.4.0.

Incidentally this is basically how GNOME do it. They've got 2.21.x being
pre-releases for 2.22.x which are stable releases. The difference is
that the 2.22 etc are not meaningful at all. That's why we figured that
the year makes more sense.

If it were not for the testing versions we could just use 2009.0.x and
2009.1.x for the major versions.

It's not as simple as I'd like. Does anyone have any better suggestions
that fit our requirements?

Duncan