Sponsored link
Serve your customers, not your servers, with VERIO Linux VPS. Full-access test-drive here.
| Weekly edition | Kernel | Security | Distributions | Search |
| Archives | Calendar | Subscribe | Write for LWN | LWN.net FAQ |
Anyone else tired of these inscrutable code names?
Anyone else tired of these inscrutable code names?
Posted Aug 19, 2005 0:54 UTC (Fri) by stevenj (subscriber, #421)Parent article: Ubuntu Breezy Badger "Colony 3" now available
It used to be that one could trust the free-software community, at least, to use sensible major.minor.bugfix version numbers. Soon, we'll have "GNOME Vista 2005 SPQR Panthro".
(Log in to post comments)
Anyone else tired of these inscrutable code names?
Posted Aug 19, 2005 1:52 UTC (Fri) by rm6990 (guest, #30921) [Link]
Ummm, what are you talking about? Colony 3 is a alpha version name. Much like Deer Park for the Alpha versions of Firefox. Breezy, when released, will use the standard Ubuntu 5.10 Breezy title.
Or do you propose that instead they name the alpha version the same as the final release so that every novice linux user downloads an alpha release, not realizing they have done so? That is the exact reason Firefox Alphas are named Deer Park.
Anyone else tired of these inscrutable code names?
Posted Aug 19, 2005 19:10 UTC (Fri) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link]
No, alpha version should be named 5.10 alpha 1, etcetera.What happens instead is that people tend to refer to the releases by the code names (hmm, does Debian "sid" come after or before "woody"??).
Anyone else tired of these inscrutable code names?
Posted Aug 25, 2005 6:52 UTC (Thu) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]
If one don't even know that, maybe it's best to avoid the unstable version of the software for now. :)
Anyone else tired of these inscrutable code names?
Posted Aug 19, 2005 3:49 UTC (Fri) by jwb (subscriber, #15467) [Link]
No, you couldn't ever trust people to do that. RPM once broke binary compatibility with a sub-sub-minor revision number, and Linux 2.6 is essentially a wide-open development tree. The user would be wise to ignore the version number and check the release notes instead.
Anyone else tired of these inscrutable code names?
Posted Aug 19, 2005 12:53 UTC (Fri) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link]
Ubuntu's numbering system is based on the date of release. So Breezy should be out October 2005. I like their system as it is more informative to be awaiting the 5.10 Ubuntu release than the 10.1 SuSE, 5.0 Fedora or 3.2 Debian release.
Giving a distribution software version numbers does not make a ton of sense anyway. They package up other software that does have sensible versioning for the most part. I would rather be able to deduce the release date from the distribution version code so that I can get a sense for what software is likely to be in it. For example, tell me what the SuSE 5.3 release meant. I'm sure that Ubuntu's installer apps have sensible version numbers.
Kind Regards
Anyone else tired of these inscrutable code names?
Posted Aug 25, 2005 10:41 UTC (Thu) by guybar (subscriber, #798) [Link]
The office for obfuscation and mis-communication just called.
They find your objection to calling alphas "deer park" or "Colony" or "sid" or "bugs bunny", or whatever, really offensive.
Bordering on KISS-like heresy, even.