[Koha-devel] Koha numbering

[Paul]

At 12:15 AM 4/7/2013 +0200, Paul Poulain wrote:
[snip]
>The poll would have the following options :
>  * keep 3. "forever"
>  * keep the 3. until a major functional change is made, like introducing
>a new search engine. The numbering change is decided by the Release Manager.
>  * drop the 3. and use 14.0, 14.1, 14.2, 16.0, 16.1,...
>  * adopt a numbering style with YYYY-MM (2013-11, 2014-05, 2014-11,...)
>QUESTION TO THIS LIST, before the poll: for the YYY-MM style, how to
>number the maintaince releases ?

[Based on Ubuntu, clearly announced ahead of time, predictable for planning 
purposes in the long term] the year/months are on a six month cycle 
April/October: 12.04(LTS), 12.10, 13.04, 13.10, 14.04(LTS), 14.10 ... etc. 
[And for anyone wanting to be at the cutting edge there are beta and alphas 
leading up to the releases.]

There are occasional "maintenance" releases in between, at least for the 
LTS releases -- e.g. at the moment, a year after 12.04 there is a 
12.04.2(LTS) -- just a simple "dot digit" on the end, like Koha. But it's 
12.04 plus security patches only (for the server edition) with no 
"enhancements."

How many libraries using Koha really look at "new releases" every month or 
so? We are based on 3.8.5 which was state of the art when I put it into 
production six months ago. Koha is up to what? 3.8.11 plus 3.10.4 plus 3.12 
beta plus 3.14 in the offing. And my system isn't even a "current stable 
release" any more ...

Maybe the *numbering* of releases is less important than the *number* of 
releases? Would more time for testing and Q.A. lead to a more stable 
platform, say on a six monthly basis? Would it tempt more libraries to 
examine enhancements? ... and please, these are just questions, certainly 
not criticism.

Best - Paul

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