> Incompatibilities from one release to the next *has* to bump the major
> version...a minor number should be a *minor* upgrade, plain and simple...
Fine. But I'm happy with "minor" Postgres improvements counting as
"major" for other packages. We're doing a better job then lots of
commercial companies in improving the product; I'd hate to try
matching some of their pathetic release bumps in our version numbering
since by that standard we should be *skipping* some of the whole
numbers.
Lets see,
Solaris 2.7 == SunOS 5.5 (or is it 5.4?) == Solaris 7
JDK1.2 == Java1.2 == Java 2
Win98 != Win98 Rel2 != Win98 Rel2 Hotfix x != ...
Yuck.
imo the *only* reason we are tempted to do more major releases is that
we are too lazy/understaffed/sensible (you pick it) to support
multiple db formats for our compiled code. Other commercial DBs don't
release often, and they don't include big improvements, but they *do*
include support for multiple db formats/schemas in their product, so
you aren't forced into an initdb for each release. Instead they
include klugy workaround code to allow reading older formats with the
newer version.
Good things are being said about us, and people are noticing that the
product has improved from v6.0 to v6.5. We don't need to be at v11.0
to get noticed; in fact it may look a little silly...
- Thomas
--
Thomas Lockhart lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu
South Pasadena, California