Here’s my splash of paint on this bike shed: 

I think bumping to 3.0 would be appropriate because of all the 
backward-incompatible changes being made with the removal of BGE and BI, and 
that the Python API has changed enough to break nearly every single add-on out 
there. The addition of EEVEE, GP, UI overhaul, etc are big enough to consider 
this a major release, but I think breaking compatibility is the best reason for 
a major version jump.

> On Dec 8, 2018, at 11:45 AM, Chad Fraleigh <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
> On 12/8/2018 3:58 AM, Mick Lawitzke wrote:
>> it is really awesome to see the latest development of Blender. I am super 
>> impressed and hyped for what is coming. Anyway i think there is a big flaw 
>> that also results in a problem with marketing: Your versioning numbers 
>> suggest that 2.80 is just a minor update to 2.79 and people call it 2.8 
>> (eight) instead of 2.80 (eighty).
>> I am a software developer for 15 years now and i highly recommend you to use 
>> semantic versioning:
>> - Current version is Blender 2.79 but what if you do bugfixes on 2.79, you 
>> would not call it 2.80 right? A better approach would be to call it 2.79.0 
>> and then a bugfix makes it 2.79.1. The current latest version might be 
>> 2.79.102 if there were 102 patches on that version.
>> - The next version would be 2.80.0. But since you worked 3 years on that and 
>> introduce so many awesome improvements and changes this is a major update 
>> and would introduce Blender 3.0.0 (Or short just Blender 3).
> 
> It does use semantic [compatible] versioning, just not in standard 
> dot-notation. Think of it more like 2.<major><minor>[<patch>], where the 
> leading 2 is [mostly] meaningless (similar to JDK versions 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, ... 
> where the 1 part is basically ignored).
> 
> Blender -> "standard" dot notation examples:
> 
> 2.7 -> 2.7.0.0
> 2.70 -> 2.7.0.0
> 2.78 -> 2.7.8.0
> 2.78a -> 2.7.8.1
> 7.78b -> 2.7.8.2
> 
> 
>> From marketing perspective a "Blender 3" would have a much bigger impact 
>> than just an update from "2.79" to "2.80" which is also incorrectly called 
>> "2.8", too.
> 
> 2.8 is shorthand for 2.8x, like "version 4" is shorthand for 4.x (in standard 
> dot notation).
> 
> 
>> In addition to that i just wanted to mention, that some big projects skipped 
>> a version to make the latest update even more obvious:
>> - Windows jumped from 8 to 10
>> - PHP jumped from 5 to 7
>> This could be an option for Blender, too, to improve the marketing even 
>> further: Jump from 2.79 to Blender 4. But in my opinion a jump to 3 would 
>> already do the job.
> 
> Ugh.. manipulative, fake version jumps is for products that care more about 
> PR than actual quality. And it is anti-semantic versioning, since it breaks 
> the logical/meaningful progression it was designed for (instead of projects 
> just picking versions out of a hat, all willy nilly).
> 
> 
> Personally, I've always thought it was a little confusing, too, but for 
> backward compatibility, that's what it is. Of course, when it eventually gets 
> past version 2.99, there might be an opportunity to move to standard notation 
> (e.g. 3.<minor>[.<patch>], then 4.x.x, ...) without breaking the 2.x 
> numbering style. Another option could be to market it as "Blender 8" (where 
> the 2.* is ignored), but still use 2.8x elsewhere (however, that is confusing 
> just like what java/JDK did). Maybe "jumping" to version 8.x (for technical 
> realignment, not trying-to-impress PR reasons). Really, 9.x would be the 
> earliest this could be done since 2.8x is already so heavily ingrained. The 
> last option would be my vote, given that 2.9x planning is probably little 
> more than a concept at this point and could easily be made 9.x.
> 
> So there's my 2 1/2 cents on the subject. Any similarity between my thoughts 
> and those of a raving madman may be more than just coincidental. =)
> 
> 
> -Chad
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