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Do Software Versions Really Matter?
An anonymous reader writes "I work for a rather large software company and I am currently working on a completely new product. So new in fact, that the official name has not even been decided. I had assumed that the version number for this product would be 1.0 (at most). However recently I learned that the Product Managers want to release this NEW product with a version number somewhere between 5.0 and 8.0 because 'there is a stigma about buying 1.0 products. People assume it's no good.' This latest Dilbert-esque comedy routine nearly sent me over the edge. So to gauge my sanity against that of the upper Product Management, I ask the community: Do version numbers play a role in software decisions, or have product version numbers lost all credibility and meaning? Would the community feel comfortable buying version '6.3' software (and paying tens of thousands of dollars for it) knowing that it was the first release of the product?"
There never was a Dbase I version, their initial release was Dbase II. :)
Gutsy, Feist, Hoary, etc are codenames. The actual release is Ubuntu 7.04, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS, etc. Which is stupid, but for another reason altogether.
If 76 Trombones really led the big parade, why did they have anyone else in it?
Or instead of the version number in the about box, just put the build date (with month and day). Meaningful to you for tracking releases, but meaningless to the user.
-mls
A product family is used as a generic name for the whole family and if you don't have version numbers then you have hell.
Customer: I'm using WizzoProg and getting this problem.
Tech support: Which version of WizzoProg are you using?
Customer: WizzoProg. I couldn't find a version.
Tech support: Ok that must be the original Wizzoprog.
Five minutes of confusion....
Customer: Oh, you remember you asked for the version, I can see know it is V3.2.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Plenty of people. Slackware jumped from version 4 to 7 because Patrick got tired of people asking him when he'd upgrade to "Linux 6.0".
This is not a new thing. In the early 1980s, not only did George Tate opt for dBASE II instead of dBASE I, because he thought it would be considered to be more stable, but he also invented a fictional "Ashton" to make the company sound cooler "Ashton-Tate".
Try me. Because I bought the software means that a support person on the other end will hear from me. If I find that the company intentionally misled me in order to sell the product then a full refund is in order as well a potential legal action.
When you have a corporate legal team at your disposal miracles do happen. Or at least refunds.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
Kinda reminds me of Winamp. Winamp went from a solid 2.x version to a new and awful 3.x version. They wound up going back to more of the 2.x version with some of the 3.x functionality and released it as Winamp 5, since 2+3=5.
God damn, I thought people in /. would know better...
1. WinNT 3.51
2. WinNT 4
3. Windows 2000 (5.0)
4. Windows XP (5.1)
5. Windows Vista (6.0)
6. Windows 7 (7.0)
Open Notepad, go to Help - About and you'll see those version numbers. Windows 2000 was 5.0.2195, XP: 5.1.2600 ...
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
I maintain Finnix, a system maintenance livecd. The first release was 0.03. The next release was 86.0. Why?
1) Why not?
2) See 1.
3) It had been 5 years between releases.
Finnix is currently at 92.0, and I've got to make a decision about version numbering soon. The reason is simple: "There Will Be No Finnix 95", for obvious reasons. I may just jump from 94 to 100.
I've noticed that, when Finnix is on a X.0 release, people tend to transpose it incorrectly a lot more often, saying "Finnix 0.92" etc. I think many people just cannot comprehend a version number greater than 10 or so.
7 is not a version number; Windows 7 is a product number. Big difference.
Much depends on the customer. Most are quite stupid. But then you say the price the over $10K. Then I might expect the customer will at least have asked around. They will quickly find out that even with the version at 6.3 there ARE NO OTHER CUSTOMERS. They will then think "something is wrong" suspect fraud and bail.
If I knew it was a 1.0 release then that would explain the lack of existing customers but a 6.0 with no existing user base? I'd be thinking "scam".
But on the other hand if the software were to be sold retail in a box as an "impulse buy" for $29.95 thaen you could expect you customers would fall for the scam and maybe never even find out. But with a $20K price they will at least try Google to find reviews and the like and when they come up missing... not good you've just lost the trust of a potential customer.
EVERY version of Windows has more bugs...
Windows NT 4 was much more stable than NT 3.x. Every version of Windows after ME was better than Windows ME. Windows 3.11 was better than Windows 3.0 and Windows 3.0 was a huge improvement over Windows 2.0...
I could go on...
I totally agree with the parents post.
Another option for the original poster would be to name their product after the year, as in
FooBar 2009, or even more vague as in just plain FooBar
..........FULL STOP.
A few years ago, I worked for a network operations center at a university, and we managed the internet access of over one hundred thousand users (mostly the university interconnects and the internet gateways, not everything down to the dorm room or anything like that). We were toying with the idea of using a ticketing system to handle issues that cropped up, and I was asked to evaluate some open source software packages.
Eventually, I found Request Tracker, slapped together a demo server, and showed it to the "Director of Technology." He stroked his beard. "It's okay," he said, frowning, "but the ticket you just created has the ID number of 1."
I shrugged. "Well... yeah," I said. "It's the first ticket."
He shook his head. "That's not going to work. We need to be able to start it much higher. Otherwise everyone is going to know that the software is new."
I stared at him. "We get phone calls from about two dozen network engineers," I said. "We're on a first name basis with all of them. I think the giveaway will be that they get a ticket number at all, not that it's low."
But he was adamant. I was annoyed enough by the whole conversation that I stopped working on it, and for all I know they're still not using a formal ticketing system. (Which is probably just as well, because even if they'd started a ticketing system at id # 0, four years later they'd probably be into the low three digits.)
It seems like software evolves something like this:
Real v1.0 -- First version, fairly buggy but generally usable. Vendor labeled version 1.0.
v1.1 -- Minor improvements, bug fixes. Labeled version 2.0.
v1.2 -- More of the same, minor new features. Labeled version 3.0.
v1.3 -- Well-honed release, new features in v1.2 now flawless, no noticable bugs. Labeled version 4.0.
At this point, they have basically the finished product they should have released as version 1.0 but based on their release schedule should really be v1.3 and not version 4.0. But since its finished and works, nobody will buy a version 5.0 that basically repeats "actual" version v1.2 or v1.3 changes.
So the vendor releases version 5.0, which is a total rewrite with a new UI, mimicking whatever the most popular eye candy "skin" out there they can find, a few new features and a ton of new bugs and problems. In reality, released version 5.0 is more like a new program with the same name with a real version of 1.0. In this second iteration they repeat the general steps of "real" versions 1.1->1.3, but often quickly and often using a point versioning system.
By the time they do version 6.0, they are fully cycling the product with major changes but actually just releasing a 1.0 product. They also seem to do this quickly enough that they never get past "real" .1 point release improvements before cycling again.
You misremember. There certainly was an MSDOS 6 (DOS versions), 6.0, 6.2, 6.22 in 1993-4; I think I actually bought them.
Windows NT 4 was much more stable than NT 3.x.
On what planet? It took til Vista to undo the damage that MS did moving the video subsystem from the executive layer to the kernel's.
BEA tried this awhile ago with their brand spankin' new 8.0 version of their server. The marketing department got clever and instead of calling it 8.0, decided it would be released as version 8.1
It might have initially fooled a few people, but it later just served as fodder to ridicule the company when we'd uncover the most basic bugs.
More importantly, their marketing department must have eventually concluded it was a bad idea, as the next version abandoned that scheme and was released as 9.0 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblogic)
Win95 rev B was better than WinME, and Win98 (especially SE) was a lot better than WinME. Win98SE is still a pretty good OS for old-school gaming; it's like DOS 5.
1. OS/2 1.x
2. OS/2 2.x
3. WinNT 3.x
4. WinNT 4
5. WinNT 5.x (2000, XP)
6. WinNT 6 (Vista)
7. WinNT 7
That's how you get to Windows 7. Remember that OS/2 was originally a MS-IBM joint venture.
you forgot 6.21 which was actually a downgrade as it removed functionality that had been illegally put in 6.0 and 6.2
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
They did, but you sound like you've got a cold when you say them.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Every version before ME was also more stable.
ME was simply the lowest point attained by MS.
"I was in love with a beautiful blonde once, dear. She drove me to drink. It's the one thing I am indebted to her for."