Guys, this discussion/debate is quite discouraging. I don't know how the other committers feel, but I have no strong opinion for either. I just want us to decide and move on.
One thing I would like to understand. Why haven't other committers brought their opinions forward on this?
Well, I have, actually, but I don't care that much about it, which is why I haven't voted or had further comments.
In a nutshell, here are my concerns:
a) version numbers are never reused in any way. I thought that Martin's description of a "test build" might result in this, but now I am confident that he didn't intend that.
b) we have a clear way to "withdraw" a flawed release, in case that happens. Since I think we're hoping more committers will cut releases, we have to expect that some of us will make mistakes resulting in unusable releases
I do acknowledge the value in being able to apply a name to the release style so that people in the future don't have to go through this same confusion about what the rules of each are. To be honest, I might guess that the Tomcat and HTTPD folks don't care that much either, and if they didn't already have a practice, they would adapt what they have to whatever was more standardized. I don't think I know either process well enough to really sling their names around, so I'm now trying to focus just on what we're saying we're going to do.
I don't see a clear reason to vote for one over the other; I've been hanging back waiting for you all to clear that up for me.
What I do think we've been doing wrong is rushing to vote on a release right after it is cut. As I noted before, from the framework we've laid out, I would consider it totally normal for us to change (upward) the status of a release from test/alpha to beta to GA. In fact, I might even say that once we verify that a release is not fundamentally flawed, we should have a mandatory cooling off period before it would be appropriate to make a vote.
There I go, complicating things.
Joe
--
Joe Germuska [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://blog.germuska.com "In fact, when I die, if I don't hear 'A Love Supreme,' I'll turn back; I'll know I'm in the wrong place."
- Carlos Santana
