The old version name versus version number debate..

[Daniel Robitaille]

On 12/3/06, David M <lists2006 at trancepod.34sp.com> wrote:
>
> Just a thought on that old version name versus version number debate..
>
> A friend kindly gave me their old HP LJ-1000 printer, but it turns out
> that it's a printer that has, hmmm, issues with Linux (although
> apparently it can be made to work).
>
> While searching around the net looking for information and answers as to
> how to get the printer working, I realised I was becoming horribly
> confused:
>
> Many of the user comments scattered around the net referred to breezy or
> hoary and the like..
>
> ..and I suddenly realised that I could no longer remember the order (of
> the names) in which Ubuntu versions were released before..
>
> [and I almost had to pause for thought even there in a 1984ish "Ubuntu
> has always been 'edgy', any other names you may have heard are
> misinformation from BSD. Ubuntu has always been at war with BSD.." way]
>
> ..'dapper', so I had no idea whether I was reading comments that were
> just a little out of date, or from a long long time ago (in a galaxy
> far far away). :-(
>
>
> The named version strategy worked fine for Debian, when indeed, entire
> star systems lived and died between release dates <ducks>, and the
> chance of coming across documentation (due to recycling of webpages)
> dating back further than the immediately previous release was virtually
> nil. But with Ubuntu releasing every 6 months, it does get confusing
> when digging around in the virtual world of the web to tell,
> metaphorically, whether you're reading something laserprinted yesterday
> or etched on tablets of clay thousands of years ago..
>
> That's one up for using the numbers, in my opinion :)
>

while this is not what is happening in the real world,  the named
version are supposed to be only for internal use before the final
release.  After the release only the version number name should be
used for anything visible to the end users.   At least according to
this wiki page:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CodeNamesToVersionNumbers

=============
The names of each release (e.g., Breezy Badger, Dapper Drake) are
development code names and typically for internal use only. The
official version number follows a Y.MM naming scheme (e.g., Version
5.10, Version 6.06). We don't want to use the version numbers prior to
the actual release, as it increases the likelihood that a pre-release
version will be mistaken for a final release. Similarly, we don't want
the code names to be visible to the user once the final release has
been made.
=============


-- 
Daniel Robitaille