D. Richard Hipp wrote: > [...] > Some concern has been expressed that we are releasing too frequently. > (Three releases in one week is a lot!) The concern is that this > creates the impression of volatility and unreliability. We have been > told that we should delay releases in order to create the impression > of stability. But the SQLite developers feel that truth is more > important than perception, not the other way around. We think it is > important to make the highest quality and most stable version of > SQLite available to users at all times. This week has seen two > important bugs being discovered shortly after a major release, and so > we have issued two emergency patch releases after the regularly > scheduled major release. This makes us look bad. This puts "egg on our > face." We do not like that. But, three releases also ensures that the > best quality SQLite code base is available available to you at all > times. > [...]
It would not make sense to delay bug fixes, but have you ever thought about using a different version number scheme? In the Linux kernel development, a fourth digit has officially been introduced with kernel version 2.6.11. A release with four digits resolves true and confirmed bugs only and contains no further changes at all. This means, for instance, if sqlite 3.6.8 is considered to be the stable release, then a pure bug fix as described above would become release 3.6.8.1 (instead of 3.6.9) and if you had to ship yet another one, it would become 3.6.8.2 (instead of 3.6.10). The next release with more than just a pure bug fix would then become 3.6.9 (as opposed to, say, 3.6.11 in the current version number scheme). For an example, have a look at the directory listing of http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/. While such an approach doesn't change anything from a technical point of view (you ship exactly the same number of releases as before), it may help to tackle at least some of the concerns mentioned in your email and it may allow everybody to distinguish between feature and pure bug fix releases more easily. It certainly offers a more fine-grained control over the version numbers. Just an idea... Thomas _______________________________________________ sqlite-users mailing list sqlite-users@sqlite.org http://sqlite.org:8080/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sqlite-users
