LWN: Comments on "openSUSE Leap's backward version jump"

Just version numbers?

cyphar — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 21:19:37 +0000

Any such script was broken in the first place :). openSUSE has rpm macros specifically for this purpose.

Not

nix — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 19:43:04 +0000

True enough, as uname on a Solaris box will tell you. :)

No.

paulj — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 11:48:21 +0000

The API accessible SunOS version did _not_ go backwards. Solaris 2 was versioned as SunOS 5.x, where x was the minor version of the Solaris release. E.g. Solaris 2.0 was SunOS 5.0, Solaris 11 is SunOS 5.11.

Further, Solaris was pretty different (in Unix lineage terms) to SunOS. SunOS was BSD derived. Solaris was AT&T System V derived.

openSUSE Leap's backward version jump

lbt — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 10:51:54 +0000

I think it's a really sensible engineering decision that properly brings the technical issue to here-and-now and hence doesn't introduce technical debt to the future.

A while back they had a good design (alignment) that couldn't be done properly. They went with the second best approach. Suddenly they get a chance - probably just one chance - to do it right. Not zero cost but not that bad. So they did it right. Kudos!!

oh and if you think "how silly, we used to be able to rely on versions increasing in a numerical way" then I suggest you read this page and rethink what you thought you knew :

https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Build_Service_cross_dist...

openSUSE Leap's backward version jump

xorbe — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 01:40:51 +0000

Why would you number an OS with something that immediately makes it look two years old. Take a page from car manufs and use SLE 18, problem solved.

Not

jengelh — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 12:14:54 +0000

>However... SunOS did the same in 1992 with Solaris 2

That is a rename, a new product line. In all the years, the *SunOS* version never went backwards (cf. wikipedia Solaris article, history table there).

Just version numbers?

NAR — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 10:57:48 +0000

Well, although it's just version numbers, this can break any script that checks for e.g. version newer then 40 or anything that tries to sort releases...

No.

drag — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 10:27:22 +0000

Hopefully Suse will be the one buying Oracle. Along with Redhat finally buying IBM and killing of AIX and Canonical buying Microsoft.

No.

epa — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 01:58:15 +0000

I thought the comment was just a mildly amusing parody. Attached to a fairly lightweight article (this is just about version numbers, after all), surely we can let it pass.

No.

pizza — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 22:06:57 +0000

Or perhaps it's a sign that in the year 2025, Oracle will buy SuSE and proceed to drive it into the ground?

No.

nix — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 20:25:28 +0000

Technically this *is* a retardation -- the number is going backwards. However... SunOS did the same in 1992 with Solaris 2, and it was not exactly lethal to them (though everyone poked fun at them for it), what with Solaris more or less owning the dotcom boom eight years later.

Maybe this is a sign that SuSE will rule the Third Dotcom Boom in the year 2025!

No.

corbet — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 19:27:47 +0000

If your messages had the same tone as this post, I can see why they might have been ignored.

One can certainly question the wisdom of this particular decision without engaging in this sort of low-level personal attack. Please avoid such attacks on LWN in the future.

openSUSE Leap's backward version jump

trazor — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 19:15:17 +0000

Typical Backwards Broken & Retarded (BBR) news from the Linux crowd. I sent Ubuntu emails for years about how Unity was "broken and retarded" and never received a reply. Now it looks like OpenSUSE is on the same dumb path to OS failure. As a Computer Scientist, I think it's funny how no one in the Linux crowd has passed CSCI-010 for idiots!