On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 23:48:35 +0200 Nico Huber nico.h@gmx.de wrote:
Hi folks,
Hi,
I am just a user but (unfortunately?) I happen to have an opinion on the matter, so here it is :)
now that we have a git repository [1] ready (thanks Stefan!), I've visited again the flashrom development guidelines [2]. I stumbled there over a very long, exemplary version number: "0.9.10.1". IMHO, two things are wrong here: 1st there are too many dots for my taste, and 2nd the former two numbers are meaningless.
Personally I wouldn't mind having a 0.9.10, or even a 0.10.0 as long as they mean something, I am elaborating more below. And if you are worried about breaking lexicographic order, "sort -V" is a viable workaround on GNU systems, and git can sort versions too: git tag -l --sort="version:refname"
To avert that, I call for naming the next release "1.0". If necessary it would get point releases "1.0.1", "1.0.2" etc, of course.
A fixed scheme is more manageable: use always the same number of fields.
Regarding the naming of release tags and branches, I really like what the Linux people do. In their naming scheme the tag for "1.0" would be named `v1.0` and the branch `flashrom-1.0.y`. With different pre- fixes for tags/branches it's always obvious what is referred to, and with a wildcard (here the `y`) in the branch name the ongoing develop- ment is emphasized.
Opinions? other proposals?
One thing that came to mind is: if flashrom will ever become a shared library + a program using the library, it could be worth using something like the "Semantic Versioning" scheme http://semver.org/
According to that scheme changing the fields in an a.b.c version number mean this:
a. MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes, b. MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards-compatible manner, and c. PATCH version when you make backwards-compatible bug fixes.
This way external users of the library can decide what version to depend on, and packagers have a well-defined scheme for tracking the soname.
Just my 2c.
As always thanks for flashrom, and congrats on the git repository.
Ciao ciao, Antonio