This is the mail archive of the
gcc@gcc.gnu.org
mailing list for the GCC project.
Re: Release numbering
Phil Edwards wrote:
Trying to get the SC to hand down a 4.0 decision now will cause tension,
fights, disagreement, plagues, etc. Why not work together to create a
release that we can agree is worthy of the name 4.0? Why does it have to
be forced through now?
A major version number is not a medal for achievment!
It is simply an indication of a significant change in the technology
that warns users that the change is not a simple incremental one, and
indeed is one that may cause issues of performance and realiability
at first, and therefore some people may legitimately hesitate to move
to the new major release, or at least to the first minor release under
this major release.
If I am a user of software and I see the version number change from
3.4 to 3.5, I assume this is an incremental release which can be
expected to be an improvement without major regressions.
If I see a change from 3.4 to 4.0, I know a big change has taken
place.
It's more than that. We're still often slower, we're still often buggier,
we're still cleaning up from the results of (a very successful) merge.
That's an argument *for* a major version number change, not against.