[ntp:hackers] post-4.2.8 ntp-dev

Greg Troxel gdt at ir.bbn.com
Thu Dec 25 15:54:34 UTC 2014


Havard Eidnes <he at uninett.no> writes:

> The thing which would be the simplest all around is to stop
> attaching any special semantics to any of the numbers which make
> up the version number for the ntp distribution, and to the extent
> you need to call them anything simply designate them as
> major.minor.tiny and possibly patchlevel.
>
> This has several advantages:
>
> 1) It allows you to not change the package name
> 2) It allows you to not introduce any discontinuities in the
>    versioning of the package
> 3) It divorces the "maximum protocol version implemented" from
>    the release numbering scheme, allowing you to go to 5.x
>    without there having to be a corresponding NTP version 5
>    protocol spec.

I agree with Havard.  All of this feels like churn for no good reason.
I think we should just let it be.

I don't understand the issue where people out there don't understand the
release numbers:

  People who don't hack on a package basically ask the question "is my
  software up to date", which mean "do I have the most recent production
  release", which in practice is "do I have the most recent release made
  available by my packaging system".

  People who do hack on a package (or package it) read NEWS, and the
  content attached to versions should make clear what's in what version.

So really, people do "yum/apt-get/pkgin/whatever update", and they
neither understand nor care.   That's aas it should be, really.


I'm left wondering who the people are who are having trouble because of
the current scheme, and if they are validly having an issue, or if they
just don't understand the diversity of numbering schemes in Free
software.


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