Message-ID: <8fa74683a260e4e9af058fa015e72d44574ad995.camel@zv.io>
Subject: Re: [3.15] System change proposal: rename the Alpine 3.15 release
 to Alpine 15
From: Zach van Rijn <me@zv.io>
To: Ariadne Conill <ariadne@dereferenced.org>
Cc: ~alpine/devel@lists.alpinelinux.org
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2021 00:12:58 -0500
In-Reply-To: <3824aef2-8af2-d33a-47e3-c7c66bd6615e@dereferenced.org>
References: <3824aef2-8af2-d33a-47e3-c7c66bd6615e@dereferenced.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
User-Agent: Evolution 3.36.4-0ubuntu1 
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

On Thu, 2021-04-08 at 20:29 -0600, Ariadne Conill wrote:
> ...
> 
> An argument could have been made to jump to Alpine 4.x with
> apk-tools 3, but we have decided to implement apk-tools 3 out
> in a way that is non-disruptive.  So that argument is now moot,
> as well.

I think it would make more sense to start at "4" without minor
releases, instead of "15", for the following reasons:

(1) It is logical to go from 3 to 4 and will avoid confusion in
    the interim while everyone gets used to the new scheme;

(2) "Alpine 4 is out?" sounds better than "Alpine 15 is out?"
    (followed by "What the heck is Alpine 15?");

(3) It affords more releases before the numbers become huge and
    unwieldy, however these point releases [0] should probably
    not become { 5, 6, 7, ... 81, 82, 83 } in the near future.

Depending on how often the version /needs/ to be incremented, it
could make sense to follow a schedule with more regularity, e.g.
that of Fedora [1]. Personally, this would not be my preference.


> ...
> 
> Yes, to be brutally honest, this is an entirely marketing-
> related thing, and there is no technical benefit either
> way.  However, this versioning scheme is more aligned with
> other Linux distributions.

It may also make sense to keep the version number in sync with
your GCC major (i.e., start at "10"), as it would make somewhat
clear what is expected to be compatible ABI-wise [2] if folks are
using Alpine environments (read: containers are ubiquitous) to
build and link their software. But, this isn't a strong argument.

In any case, I don't see a strong incentive to start this scheme
at "15", but I don't see a strong reason to keep points.


ZV


[0]: https://alpinelinux.org/posts/
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fedora_version_history
[2]: https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/libstdc++/manual/abi.html