On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 04:56:11PM -0400, Wietse Venema wrote: > After the confusion that Postfix 2.10 is not Postfix 2.1, maybe > it is time to change the release numbering scheme.
The 2.10=2.1 confusion is something we commonly see in IRC. On the plus side, it shows that the person was reading actual Postfix documentation. On the minus side, it shows that they used the web documentation rather than their own version-specific pages. > We could to the Linux thing where 2.mumble was followed by > 3.mumble. Eww. I did not like this. > or we could do it like Sun. After releasing Solaris 2.0 .. 2.6, > they changed the numbering scheme with Solaris 7 which was > released way back in 1998. Nowadays, many software distributions > change the major release number frequently, if not every time. > > If we were to change the release numbering scheme like this with > Postfix then we would immediately be free from the pain of > getting sites to adopt Postfix 3.0, because they would no longer > expect the pain of transitioning from Python 2->3, from perl > 5->6 and the like. The next Postfix release would be 11.0, so > 3.x would never happen. My wish is that Postfix 3.0, should it ever happen, would be a rewrite which sacrifices backward compatibility and the easy upgradability. Many things were learned over the course of Postfix 1.x/2.x development, and a Postfix 3.0 (in my ideal world, that is) should have the benefits of those lessons without the burdens of the past. Yes, I know you have cut back on Postfix development time, so it might never happen. I'm just saying: let a major version be a major version. Anyone who looks at the "Postfix Source Code" download page can figure it out. "Postfix 2.10 stable release" in <h1> at the top, followed by "Postfix 2.11 experimental release" and then the "Past stable releases" section. Problem is: they aren't looking there. They got their Postfix from a distributor. My vote: add a brief note to the introduction of postconf.5.html describing the release numbering scheme. Repeat that note below at postconf.5.html#mail_version . In the "old way", major.minor.patchlevel versioning had real meaning. What's wrong with that? -- http://rob0.nodns4.us/ -- system administration and consulting Offlist GMX mail is seen only if "/dev/rob0" is in the Subject:
