Re: The case for version number inflation

On 02/27/2013 02:55 PM, Josh Berkus wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I'm personally fond of our version numbering scheme; without it, we'd be
> on PostgreSQL version 23 now. It's old skool and like other
> infrastructure projects we admire, such as Linux, Apache, and FreeBSD.

Exactly, I am pretty sure people know that there have not been just 3
major kernel releases.

>
> However, this weekend at SCALE I heard someone who has been using
> PostgreSQL for 10 years say "we've had nine major releases".

Someone not paying attention:)

>
> And you're probably aware of the issue with Amazon Linux, where they
> don't distinguish between version 9.1 and 9.2 and thus corrupt people's
> databases.
>
> I'm beginning to think that no matter how much *I* like our version
> numbering scheme, it's hurting us with users because they see the last
> three releases as "version 9". One of PostgreSQL's best features is
> that we do a new major release every year, meaning that the database is
> improving greatly every year. To the vast majority of the population,
> our version numbering scheme doesn't tell that story.
>
> In other words: if we have to explain our version numbering to users all
> the time (and we do), then maybe we're doing it wrong.
>
> Further, many projects which used to use "regular" version numbers --
> such as Firefox -- have now embraced inflationary version numbers. So,
> maybe it's time to just use the first digit. The next version would be
> 10.0, and the version in 2014 would be 11.0.

I for one have no problem with the current system or explaining it to
people. It seems to be an education problem more than a numbering one.
If we start the number inflation versioning then we are left explaining
why we did 'nothing' all those years. Version numbers only have meaning
with context. I drifted away from FireFox because the version numbers
lost context and turned into a marketing tool. We just need to do a
better job supplying the context.

>
> As a counterargument, few other open source databases use inflationary
> version numbers, even the NoSQL ones.

>
> Discuss.
>

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian(dot)klaver(at)gmail(dot)com