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Re: GCC version bikeshedding
- From: Ian Lance Taylor <iant at google dot com>
- To: Eric Botcazou <ebotcazou at libertysurf dot fr>
- Cc: GCC Development <gcc at gcc dot gnu dot org>, Jason Merrill <jason at redhat dot com>, Jakub Jelinek <jakub at redhat dot com>, Richard Biener <richard dot guenther at gmail dot com>
- Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 16:06:28 -0700
- Subject: Re: GCC version bikeshedding
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <20140720165506 dot GT3003 at laptop dot redhat dot com> <53CF8E48 dot 8090003 at redhat dot com> <CAKOQZ8yvTaos4Qo=cBEF070_rZkF9V-2L-76R6i7KLisBMEn-g at mail dot gmail dot com> <201407291845 dot 14107 dot ebotcazou at libertysurf dot fr>
On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 9:45 AM, Eric Botcazou <ebotcazou@libertysurf.fr> wrote:
>> I think that if anybody has strong objections, now is the time to make
>> them. Otherwise I think we should go with this plan.
>
> IMHO the cure is worse than the disease.
What do you propose that we do?
>> Given that there is no clear reason to ever change the major version
>> number, making that change will not convey any useful information to
>> our users. So let's just drop the major version number. Once we've
>> made that decision, then the next release (in 2015) naturally becomes
>> 5.0, the release after that (in 2016) becomes 6.0, etc.
>
> I don't really understand the "naturally": if you drop the major version
> number, the next release should be 10.0, not 5.0. Here we seem to be leaning
> towards a weird scheme where we retain the major version number but change its
> meaning, which will be even more confusing than the current scheme.
Step 1: We agree that the current major revision number conveys no
information, and therefore we will change the major revision number
with every release. (I understand that you do not agree with this.)
Step 2: Assuming we agree about step 1, what should the next version
number be? Well, the current version is 4.9. Therefore, the next
version should be 5.0. That seems entirely natural to me. Having the
next release be 10.0 would make no sense to anybody who is not an
active GCC developer.
Ian