Linux 4.17 Released (betanews.com)

Mark Wycislik-Wilson, writing for BetaNews: In his weekly message to the Linux community on Sunday, Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 4.17. The release comes a couple of months after the first release candidate, and in his message Torvalds also talks about version 5.0 of the Linux kernel. Having previously said that Linux kernel v5.0 "should be meaningless," he said that this next major numerical milestone will come around "in the not too distance future." For now, though, it's version 4.17 -- or Merciless Moray, if you prefer -- that's of interest. Linux kernel 4.17 is not a major release, and Torvalds announced it without much fanfare. "So this last week was pretty calm, even if the pattern of most of the stuff coming in on a Friday made it feel less so as the weekend approached. And while I would have liked even less changes, I really didn't get the feeling that another week would help the release in any way, so here we are, with 4.17 released."

Comments

I miss consistant version numbers.

[jellomizer]

Major version changes meant a significant difference while minor changes were small changes and fixes.
Skipping numbers in version dictated the amount of change in the fix. So if I went from version 3.03 to 3.50 I know there was a lot of work done, but not enough that would break compatibility, or add significant features.

Linux for the most part has been rather consistent.

But google and Firefox with their full number upgrades, makes it more difficult to judge the complexity of the patch. We are on Firefox 60. but it is more like Firefox 7.28 or something like that. Then Microsoft decides to make no sense all together. The Intel Processors lineup is just as bad by hiding their generation of processors as secondary next to the type of processor.

Re:I miss consistant version numbers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Major version changes meant a significant difference while minor changes were small changes and fixes.

I doubt in Linux, but I know for commercial stuff version numbers are now the domain of marketing.

We have a vendor, and the version of the core component was X, reflecting a fairly mature product. The pieces and add-ons around the product, their marketing decided to give the same version ... which in many cases led to what is essentially a brand new (warts and all) component being labelled as version X. It isn't, it's barely a version 1.

This creates situations in which a new component is still a steaming turd that is missing critical features and stability, but it is presented as version X implying a much more mature and reliable piece of software.

These days, you could see version 10 or whatever of a piece of software which is really about 1.01 level of maturity, but 10 sounds cooler and better than 1.

Marketing trumps meaningful version numbers in far too many situations.