Ubuntu release names/version numbers (was: Debian or Ubuntu?)

[Shot (Piotr Szotkowski)]

Hello.

Eric Dunbar:

> On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 17:19:00 +0100, Shot (Piotr Szotkowski) wrote:
> 
> > Eric, please don't Cc: me on your replies, I'm already subscribed.
> 
> The reason for the cc is the whole BS that was visited recently
> (and gets visited every week or two) about reply-to-list vs.
> reply-to-sender vs. whatever. Reply-to-all is the only way I'm
> guaranteed that a post will actually _make_ it to the list (and,
> a whole lot of other people do the same FYI since I regularly get
> cc:ed on people's posts)!

<rant>
You could try using a real email program. ;o)
I press shift-l and reply to list, simple.
</rant>

Let's not reitarate the reply-to discussion, it doesn't lead anywhere.
As for the Cc: thing, I didn't check the list guidelines, but for Debian
lists they state that Cc: shouldn't happen unless explicitely asked for.

> Watch and see what happens when there's Warty, Hoary, Grumpy and Wimpy
> Ubuntu. Sounds like the beginning of the Snow White story and not an
> OS.

Well, I think that people who get past "Ubuntu" won't have a problem
with "Warty", or - to put it another way - I don't think it's release
codenames we should worry about if we aim to please everybody. ;o)

> > In official documents - by all means, use the official numbering.
> 
> When you have two different numbering/naming conventions you run into
> confusion. Since Apple has absolute control over the OS _and_ has
> a very seamless update path (update checking is on by default)
> there's less of an issue with versioning.

This is the wide problem of appealing to the general public. One of the
things I love in the FLOSS world is the general notion of not giving it
up to marketing; I'm a bit sad when I read we should rename The GIMP to
make it "more sellable".

I'd hate to see the upgrade notices change from "edit sources.list and
replace warty with hoary" to "edit sources.list and replace 4.10 with
5.04".

> I prefer more "organic" versioning to the artificiality of Ubuntu. If
> an update doesn't provide a serious change the version number change
> ought to be minor (e.g. kernel updates).

That's why I don't like the 4.10 -> 5.04 -> 5.10 numbering scheme.

> I'm no great fan of the mega version numbers in Linux. It makes
> it look a tad technical (perhaps that's what the version numberers
> are going for... a little ego padding to say, "look, I released 99
> previous updates to this app b/c I wasn't patient enough to put the
> updates into less frequent updates ;).

But Linux *is* technical. What you're no great fan of, I find very
informative - if I'm running PostgreSQL 7.3.x, I know I shouldn't
get too excited with 7.3.(x+1), I might be interested in 7.4, and
I shouldn't upgrade blindly to 8.0, because there might be some major
changes involved. The "even number in the middle means stable, odd
number in the middle means experimental" numbering scheme of the kernel
sources is very informative as well.

Cheers,
-- Shot
-- 
     Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He wears red to hide the
     bloodstains, and he brings fscked disks to bad sysadmins. That means
     all of us, according to Santa Claus.            -- Mike Andrews, asr
================================================ http://shot.pl/hovercraft/ ===
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