: Re: What are some standards in naming a software/hardware version? I am wondering if how we name a version of a spacecraft differs from how we name a version of a software. For software, I usually

@Phylliss352

Vote Up Vote Down

Software version numbers tend to be company or endeavor specific as @JonStonecash covers nicely.

A few examples:

Ubuntu releases their Linux distribution twice a year in April and October and uses a date format of YY.MM, but they also use fanciful names going up the alphabet such as Bionic Beaver for 18.04.

I have a tiny project of my own which is currently at version 0.3.1.1.
It's roughly Version.Release.Update.Patch.

When the version changes, one can expect that backward compatibility with older versions may be broken. Something is different.

The release changes when a lot of fixes and enhancements have been made. It's still the same product, but it may have new features or even old features removed or perhaps a new way of doing an existing function.

Update changes when significant changes have been made - primarily internally - but nothing that changes the nature of the product.

Patch changes five minutes after the last update when I realize I screwed up some text messages or broke something in the last update that I didn't notice before releasing it. A patch generally addresses one or a few small fixes to existing functionality.

The leading zero version is often used by projects that don't claim to be finished products (as in initially feature complete and everything nominally working).
Some projects (like mine) stay at version 0 for years even though they work quite well.

Then, you have people like Mozilla (Firefox) who seem to change the version number after just a few patches. They pretty much skip what I'm calling releases and updates.

The only things that are really important are to let the users know what your numbering system means and to be consistent with it so they know what to expect and can more easily decide whether they need to install the new package right away or can wait for a more major release later and when they do choose to install it, do they have to watch out for things that may not work the way they used to.

(0)

Login to post a comment!