An SP and a hotfix are a million miles apart, and there is a definition to both, and their impact on software versioning IS important when you have to manage the software park.
A hotfix is an emergency patching deployed (potentially and often with little testing) to immediately fix something in place with little regard for side effects because the issue is blocking. An SP is a pack, it polishes and tests against regression several fixes before being distributed. Very, very big difference there. Given SPs are on an if-needed basis you don't epxect them to be affected by marketing, and in fact they aren't nor have ever been, especially for Soft. Sales (not marketing) might leverage the SP and ext releases as a benefit of subscription, but given their release isn't guaranteed they are more of an engineering and damage containment call than anything. It wasn't marketing going "hey, we need a new snazzy release to have something to talk about this Siggraph" prompting the SP, it was a bunch of users in beta pointing out there were regressions that, in many cases, were blocking. I agree with Hans that if the versioning pattern has changed that's an issue, and Soft should be made aware of it so that they stick to their own conventions again in the future. WTF happened to the list the last two weeks? I understand uncertainty and consequential resentment towards AD given their lack of official communication, but since when does that warrant a barrage of unfounded and insulting statements? This place used to be a lot better than that. On Tue, Jul 30, 2013 at 7:57 AM, Sven Constable <[email protected]>wrote: > Naming software after their correct versions sells them not quite as good > as numbers in years for example. At least for the people in marketing > devisions. The fact that versioning was (and is) always strictly ruled by > certain changes, is something marketing monkeys seems to have a problem > with. Some companies name their updates regardless of the correct > versioning evolvement. Very unprofessional, to say the least.**** > > Besides this example of the unclear naming, the service pack versioning > you meantioned may be ok since it's a "SP" and could be considered as a > "hotfix". I think AD would't call it a hotfix, because it doesn't sells > very well. Furthermore, a SP isn't a term inside the versioning > convention you're talking about. Basically it doesn't mean something at > all. So I think a SP can be anything, doesn't matter what or what not it is > including.**** > > ** ** > > sven**** > > ** ** > > *From:* [email protected] [ > mailto:[email protected]<[email protected]>] > *On Behalf Of *Hans Payer > *Sent:* Monday, July 29, 2013 10:37 PM > *To:* [email protected] > *Subject:* SP2**** > > ** ** > > Please someone explain,**** > > ** ** > > How does naming a release SP2 compare to SP1 has a version number > increment of 0.0.03?**** > > ** ** > > 2014 SP1 = 12.1.94**** > > 2014 SP2 = 12.1.99**** > > ** ** > > Should itnot have been at least 12.2.xx?**** > > ** ** > > You can blame my code but I always have relied on point version to > differenciate versions.In this case they both return 12.1. **** > > ** ** > > It has always been consistent at least since 2010. Why different now?**** > > ** ** > > Hans**** > -- Our users will know fear and cower before our software! Ship it! Ship it and let them flee like the dogs they are!
