On Apr 13, 2010, at 5:54 PM, Adrian Crum wrote: > Jacopo Cappellato wrote: >> On Apr 13, 2010, at 5:13 PM, Adrian Crum wrote: >>> Scott Gray wrote: >>>> On 13/04/2010, at 10:21 PM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote: >>>>> On Apr 13, 2010, at 12:00 PM, Scott Gray wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> On 13/04/2010, at 9:36 PM, Jacopo Cappellato wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> On Apr 13, 2010, at 11:33 AM, Scott Gray wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>>> Hi Jacopo, >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> What exactly does it mean to create an "alpha" release, compared to >>>>>>>> what we have now where we create a release branch? >>>>>>> It fundamentally means that we can distribute it outside of the inner >>>>>>> group of contributors because the we can guarantee that it is full >>>>>>> compliant with ASF license requirements. >>>>>> Ah okay I see what you mean and that sounds fine to me. I'm not >>>>>> entirely clear on the version numbering though, 10.04a, 10.04b, 10.04 >>>>>> (this is the stable one), 10.04.1 (post stable bug fix release?) >>>>>> >>>>> Numbering is an interesting point because it is difficult to state what >>>>> is "stable" from what is not; in your example, of course 10.04a is not >>>>> stable; however what makes 10.04 stable? In fact it is less stable than >>>>> 10.04.1. >>>>> I don't know, if we are concerned about clarifying what we consider >>>>> stable we could follow the following strategy: adding the prefix "alpha-" >>>>> to all the releases we feel like should not be considered "stable". >>>>> For example: >>>>> alpha-10.04.a >>>>> alpha-10.04.b >>>>> Then when we feel we can consider the release stable: >>>>> 10.04 (first stable release on 10.04) >>>>> 10.04.1 (latest current stable release on 10.04) >>>>> or even: >>>>> stable-10.04 >>>>> stable-10.04.1 >>>>> >>>>> Even if it could be simpler to just start from 10.04.1 since the first >>>>> alpha release and then continue increasing the suffix: >>>>> alpha-10.04.1 >>>>> alpha-10.04.2 >>>>> stable-10.04.3 >>>>> stable-10.04.4 >>>>> >>>>> but I understand that this is less appealing (i.e. the "stable" release >>>>> will start with 10.04.3) >>>> I don't think we're limited to the version name when it comes to >>>> describing each release, the download page and perhaps a README file can >>>> help as well. >>>> How about: >>>> 10.04-alpha-1 >>>> 10.04-alpha-2 >>>> 10.04 >>>> 10.04.1 >>>> 10.04.2 >>>> ? >>> Or what other ASF projects do: >>> >>> 10.04-RC1 >>> 10.04-RC2 >>> 10.04 >>> 10.04.1 >>> 10.04.2 >>> >>> -Adrian >> I would prefer to avoid the RC (Release Candidate) suffix because it could >> be confusing since it is actually a real release, even if not intended to be >> used in production. > > I guess everyone has their preference. Not using the RC suffix seems more > confusing to me. ;-) >
HTTPD and Tomcat use a lot "alpha" and "beta" releases http://archive.apache.org/dist/httpd/ http://archive.apache.org/dist/tomcat/tomcat-6/ I think that RC is used more in branches and tags (for release candidates actually). Jacopo
