I support giving all three active code branches a clean start, on an equal
footing:
- The next release of 0.20-security (formerly expected as "0.20.205.1") to
be 1.0.0, establishing branch-1.0
- The next release of 0.22 to be 2.0.0, establishing branch-2.0
- The recent release of 0.23.0 to be 3.0.0, establishing branch-3.0,
from which the formerly expected "0.23.1" may be released as 3.0.1
- All three code branches to obey the established major.minor.patch
versioning rules going forward.
- So the next release from trunk to be 3.1.0 or 4.0.0, at the choice of the
then release manager, and the pleasure of the community.
Regards,
--Matt
On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 11:57 AM, Doug Cutting <cutt...@apache.org> wrote:
> On 11/16/2011 10:15 AM, Scott Carey wrote:
> > IMO what is important from the development and maintenance perspective is
> > the _meaning_ of the
> > major.minor.patch numbers as described in my previous message.
> >
> > If a minor version number bump means that it is a superset of the
> previous
> > release and is backwards compatible, then that requirement on its own
> > answers whether 0.22 can become 1.1, or if it must be a 2.0 release.
> >
> > Whether hadoop starts using a new meaning for major.minor.patch is what
> is
> > of interest to me; starting at 1.x.y or 20.x.y or 999.x.y is marketing.
>
> Scott, this is a great point. Thanks for making it.
>
> > The version number is completely meaningless on its own, pure marketing.
> > However, if the numbers gain meaning through a clear definition of what
> > the major.minor.patch numbers signify, then there is meaning and
> structure
> > going forward.
> > The current state of affairs seems to be:
> > major: always 0
> > minor: potentially big changes; almost always breaks wire compatibility;
> > occasionally breaks API backwards compatibility
> > minor: typically bug fixes only; 'bug fix' not well defined; almost
> never
> > breaks API or wire compatibility
>
> Long ago I proposed such rules for Hadoop releases at:
>
> http://wiki.apache.org/hadoop/Roadmap
>
> These state that pre-1.0 releases behave roughly as above.
>
> > I think the community can decide two things independently:
> >
> > - Should 0.20.20x be renamed 1.0.y ? (perhaps not, perhaps 0.23 should
> be
> > 1.0 and the others left alone).
> > - Should hadoop adopt a new clear definition of major.minor.patch number
> > significance?
>
> Would you care to call a vote on one or both of these?
>
> > example proposal:
> > * major version number increment: signifies breaks in API backwards
> > compatibility and/or major architecture overhauls.
> > * minor version number increment: signifies possible API changes, but
> > maintains API backwards compatibility. Wire compatibility may break (see
> > release notes). Included functionality is a superset of previous minor
> > release.
> > * patch version number increment: signifies a release where all
> > improvements are fully backwards compatible with the previous patch
> > version, including wire format.
>
> This is also similar to what the Roadmap wiki page indicates for
> post-1.0 releases.
>
> Renaming things after the fact to try to make them consistent when the
> prior rules weren't consistently followed is not easy. Instead we might
> better focus on rules that we intend to obey for releases going forward
> and then obey them.
>
> > Whatever the meaning of the numbers turns out to be will dictate whether
> > releases after a 1.0.x need to be 2.0.x or can be 1.1.x
>
> Good point. The most accurate approach would probably be to call each
> existing branch a distinct major release. Dropping the leading zero
> would reduce confusion and avoid marketing but would still combine
> 0.20.x and 0.20.20x which perhaps ought to be considered separate major
> releases. For me this is however a reasonable tradeoff since we're
> better off focusing on improving things in the future than arguing about
> marketing and how to hide our past versioning mistakes.
>
> Doug
>
