06/03/2006 - Environ 1 minute de lecture

Next release’s version number?

We’re wondering whether the next release of Sylpheed-Claws should be named 2.0.1 or something more innovative.

Here’s a quick poll to find out what you, as our users, think!

4 réponses

Commentaires 4

malcolm dit :

06/03/2006 à 23:27

2.0.1 or the way the project is progressing 2.0.0.0.1 otherwise we will be calling it sylpeheed-claws 10^22cvs11 soon ;)
wwp dit :

07/03/2006 à 09:52

First we should define what’s the versioning scheme. This means that we should at least know what x.y.z mean, and for each [xyz], what are the increment rules (when to increase, how to increase).

In general, jumping forward is not a good idea, at least I don’t see a valid reason to do something else but 2.1.0 or 2.0.1, regarding to the recent changes (which were, tell me if I’m wrong, bugfixes, usability issues, several not-that-major but still great new features). Please also avoid marketing attitude, playing w/ version number is really a bad idea when the contents doesn’t follow; one major change might serve the product, too many ones or a too confusing one might deserve it. Anyway, whatever version scheme is used, it must be explicitely and strictly defined, and fermly handed.

We should also be able to know if Sylpheed-Claws has reached or is taking a major turn, which would be the only reason to get a major version number change.

It’s true that Sylpheed-Claws seems not to follow any longer the architecture and implementation of Sylpheed (-main), that the code is not sync'(ed|able) anymore, and thus there is no need to follow its version number. Otherwise we would also have to ask these questions: do we keep ‘Sylpheed’ in the name? do we stay on #sylpheed IRC channel, shouldn’t we update the webpage and doc to slightly change the sentences that make reference to Sylpheed (-main)?

IMHO, there is no sufficient reason to adopt a confusing version number (and why a Ubuntu-ish one? is this fashion?), its increment speed and the versioning scheme will make the difference at mid term. The only proposal I could see were [2.0.1, 2.1.0, 3.0(.0)]. I voted for 2.0.1, no other made sense to me!

NB: BTW, nice to see polls and votes here :-), would it be possible to see the number of votes when seeing the results?
Paul dit :

07/03/2006 à 11:47

First we should define what’s the versioning scheme.

I’ll put forward a suggestion – I feel kind of responsible anyway, in making my passing thought known: A release like the imminent one should increment the MINOR_VERSION, (x.Y.z), as it adds new features, major or otherwise. If the following release just adds bug fixes, (or other extremely minor stuff), then the MICRO_VERSION, (x.y.Z), should be incremented. The MAJOR_VERSION should only be incremented when there is a major change, (e.g. the move to GTK2), or when we feel satisfied that we’ve reached the ‘next level’, whatever that might mean.

I agree with your ‘avoid marketing attitude’ view, it seems universally applicable anyway.

do we keep ‘Sylpheed’ in the name? do we stay on #sylpheed IRC channel, shouldn’t we update the webpage and doc to slightly change the sentences that make reference to Sylpheed (-main)?

I think we should stay on #sylpheed, after all, we answer questions on main as well as Claws. But the question ‘Are you using Sylpheed-Claws or Sylpheed?’ could do with a shortcut key. As for the website, I think the changes that have already occurred have removed the confusion, although perhaps more clarity is still needed. It’s (perpetually) on my TODO list, to update the site, but as it currently is adequate, then the inevitable happens, it keeps dropping down.
Colin dit :

07/03/2006 à 11:54

Agreed with Paul here. Incrementing the MINOR_VERSION anytime there are new features is logical, and has the added benefit of better reflecting the fact that we really do progress from one release to another.

Concerning keeping Sylpheed in the name, I think we should, for various reasons – first, because we started from Sylpheed and should reflect that; second, because changing to just Claws or whatever else means it’ll annoy everyone of our packagers – and users who won’t understand why /usr/bin/sylpheed-claws doesn’t exist anymore – and we already forced that when renaming ourselves to sylpheed-claws everywhere. I agree this should have been done in the beginning, but it’s easy to say that 5 years later ;-).