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Re: GCC version bikeshedding
- From: Richard Biener <richard dot guenther at gmail dot com>
- To: Segher Boessenkool <segher at kernel dot crashing dot org>
- Cc: Andreas Schwab <schwab at linux-m68k dot org>, Jakub Jelinek <jakub at redhat dot com>, GCC Development <gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org>, Richard Sandiford <rdsandiford at googlemail dot com>
- Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 11:29:39 +0200
- Subject: Re: GCC version bikeshedding
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <20140720165506 dot GT3003 at laptop dot redhat dot com> <7564e4f5-8030-4a23-8b0b-b1262265a349 at email dot android dot com> <87ha2ao6hj dot fsf at talisman dot default> <87zjg232tu dot fsf at igel dot home> <87d2cxon12 dot fsf at talisman dot default> <20140723022745 dot GB13355 at gate dot crashing dot org>
On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 4:27 AM, Segher Boessenkool
<segher@kernel.crashing.org> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 22, 2014 at 08:44:41AM +0100, Richard Sandiford wrote:
>> So why
>> not just stick to the current scheme and have 5.0.0, 5.0.1, 5.0.2 etc.?
>
> Yes, why would we use a different numbering scheme now? There is no change
> in development / release planning, unless I missed something. Is this just
> to have bigger number than the "competition"? Or is it change for change's
> sake? Are there no more important things to be done?
It's to avoid the need to decide whether to bump the major version.
For example for the next release I don't see a particularly good reason
to bump from 4.9 to 5.0 - not a reason that wasn't present when going
from 4.8 to 4.9. And going from 4.9 to 5.0 suggests that 5.0 is
not as stable as 4.9 while in reality our "major" version doesn't carry
any useful information.
Thus, as 4.10.0 is as bad for existing scripts as 5.0.0 take the opportunity
to get rid of that no-information-carrying "major" number (by making
the patchlevel version unused).
And yes, it also looks nicer marketing-wise - but that's not the reason
to change it.
Richard.
>
> Segher