[flashrom] Release numbering and branches

Antonio Ospite ao2 at ao2.it
Thu Aug 11 13:47:52 CEST 2016


On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 23:48:35 +0200
Nico Huber <nico.h at 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

-- 
Antonio Ospite
http://ao2.it

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
   See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?




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