Interviewed by CNN on 08/07/2011 12:49, Rex told the world: > Firefox went from version 4 to version 5 in less than 2 months - in > imitation of Google Chrome, who seem to be incrementing the version > every other week. > Please tell me Seamonkey isn't going to do the same thing so that by the > end of the year we're up to version 3.5 or 4, and 5 by next year. > Last week I updated to 2.1, and now barely a month later you're on 2.2, > and looks like 2.3 is a few weeks away..compared to when 2.0 debuted > last September and went on up to 2.0.14 for the minor fixes. > > I can see 2.1 has major new features and changes relative to 2.0x, but > what about between 2.1 and 2.2? Shouldn't this be a minor update to 2.1?
I had similar thoughts about the new versioning scheme at first. The thing seemed, at first glance, intended to make the marketing guys happy by artificially inflating the version numbers. But then I realized that the "rapid-release train" is an entirely different approach to the release thing. The traditional system is kinda like writing a textbook, or an encyclopedia. You research, you write, you polish, you send it for review, rinse and repeat, and it's done when it's done. Then you distribute it for years essentially unchanged. Let's call it "Version 1.0." Perhaps you add an appendix after a couple years (without considering it a new edition), but you don't touch the main body -- that's kinda like "version 1.1": you add a few things that are useful but don't alter the main work. And of course you fix typos on reprints -- but the bulk of the work is static. That's kinda like "Release 1.1.1.": you add nothing new, just fix bugs. Then, after a long time, you do substantially revise your textbook and release a new edition -- let's call it "Version 2.0." Then the cycle starts again. The rapid-release train, on the other hand, is more similar to a periodical, like a catalog or those restaurant guides that come in the newspapers. You have regular deadlines. Your section on Thai restaurants may not be quite perfect, but the thing has to go to press, and it's better than nothing, so you put it in anyway. Next week/month, you will have an improved version. The thing is always evolving, but there are no clear breakpoints. And you won't release a "corrected" guide between editions. Of course, Mozilla was kinda pushed into it by the way Chrome has been doing the rapid-release thing. But it's not a bad idea in and of itself. The traditional way of doing releases has its origins back when distribution was slow, and getting a new version of the software was a complicated process involving copying physical media. So you wanted to make damn certain that whatever you released was not missing any intended functionality, because the next major release was two or three years away. In the meantime, you *might* release patches (which, being smaller, were slightly easier to distribute) to fix problems. Nowadays, with easy Internet distribution, keeping old branches active is less useful. If you are going to release a patched version, you might as well include the new stuff that is ready for public consumption. With the new feature releases being spread out, and with the lack of maintenance-only releases, there's no longer any practical difference between a "major" and a "minor" release -- so you might as well adopt a simpler numbering scheme. In fact, some projects done away with serial version numbers entirely and went with release dates, like Ubuntu. Perhaps they have the right idea -- perhaps the Mozilla community should have jumped from "Firefox 3.6" to "Firefox 11.03" and then "11.06", and Seamonkey should have jumped from "2.0" to "11.06." But such a large jump would have flagged even more extensions as "incompatible." But it's a thought for next year -- by then, Firefox and Gecko should be going double digits. -- MCBastos This message has been protected with the 2ROT13 algorithm. Unauthorized use will be prosecuted under the DMCA. -=-=- ... Sent from my Burberry. *Added by TagZilla 0.066.2 running on Seamonkey 2.1 * Get it at http://xsidebar.mozdev.org/modifiedmailnews.html#tagzilla _______________________________________________ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
