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Torvalds Polls Desire for Linux's Next Major Version Bump

Posted by Soulskill on from the numbers-game dept.

jones_supa writes: Linus Torvalds made this post about Linux version numbering: "So, I made noises some time ago about how I don't want another 2.6.39 where the numbers are big enough that you can't really distinguish them. We're slowly getting up there again, with 3.20 being imminent, and I'm once more close to running out of fingers and toes. I was making noises about just moving to 4.0 some time ago. But let's see what people think. So — continue with v3.20, because bigger numbers are sexy, or just move to v4.0 and reset the numbers to something smaller?" To voice your opinion, the Google+ post allows you to discuss the matter and cast a vote in a poll.

3 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Major Version == Major Changes by HighOrbit · · Score: 5, Informative
    I thought the point of a major version (not necessarily in the Linux kernel, but software generally), was to signal a major change that either:
    • includes ground-breaking new features
    • includes serious archtectural reworking
    • breaks backwards compatibility

    If the changes are merely incremental bug-fixes and minor feature additions, stay with minor versioning. Otherwise, you are not versioning; you are branding (viz: Windows 8... which IIRC is version 6.2)

  2. Re:Join the crowd by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    To be fair, Apple actually did release 9 versions of Mac OS before OS X. OS X was such a major departure, while the 10.1, 10.2 10.3 releases were not. This is similar to how Microsoft calls Windows 6 as Vista, 6.1 as 'Windows 7', 6.2 as 'Windows 8', just think of the brand as 'OS X Yosemite' while the version is 10.10.

  3. Re:Is semver too simplistic for kernels? by flink · · Score: 3, Informative

    Version Numbers in general are outdated for application. The line between a Major and Minor version is huge.
    We have been on Mac OS X (10) for 14 years. with have been getting point updates over the time.
    Microsoft during that time has had 4 Major updates (That is with the insane longevity of XP).

    It depends on what you are talking about. The internal version number for Windows 7 is 6.1.x (Windows 8.1 is v6.3). So if we are going by marketing-driven release numbers, then there have been 6 or so major Windows NT release since 1996 (Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8). However, if you go by the engineering version number there have been just 2: Window 2000 was NT v5.0 and Windows Vista was NT v6.0.