Plasma Next Naming

[Martin Gräßlin]

On Monday 20 January 2014 11:41:10 Martin Klapetek wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 10:02 AM, argonel <argonel at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 19, 2014 at 2:00 AM, Martin Graesslin 
<mgraesslin at kde.org>wrote:
> >> But of course the main idea behind the version pattern change to a date
> >> based
> >> version number is to add more information to it. The main problem with
> >> version
> >> numbers is that they don't carry any information and nobody knows how old
> >> that
> >> version actually is.
> > 
> > I'd say this is not entirely true. Paired with the currently installed
> > version number, you can tell:
> > 
> > - How "far" your system is behind
> > ---> e.g. have "1.1.2" and the update is "1.1.4" --> "Whoops, missed an
> > update there, better look into that"
> > 
> > - How important/interesting the update is
> > ---> e.g. have "1.1.2" and the update is "1.1.3" --> "Ok, I don't need to
> > do this right now," or conversely "I can do this update now because its
> > unlikely to cause any serious issues"
> > ---> e.g. have "1.1.2" and the update is "2.1" --> "Whoa, really out of
> > date, maybe this showstopping bug is fixed!" or conversely "I'd better not
> > do this update until after I finish the project that's due tomorrow"
> 
> Depends on when does the user get the "update" info from. If from distros,
> in 99% of cases you won't have update from 1.1 to 2.x in the same distro
> release, because politics and stability and things. If by "update" you mean
> for example KDE.news, then the user has to be aware of such channel. On the
> other hand, if the version is date based, the user can spot immediately how
> out of date he is. More below.

To that I want to add a note on what I have observed several times with bug 
reports. When $superstabledistro releases it comes with a version already 
unmaintained from our point of view. Users can get really pissed if you tell 
them that:
a) We don't care about the bug any more because the software is unmaintained 
(after all they just got "the latest shit")
b) We already fixed it years ago and they don't have it

If the version number would tell them right from the start that they are not 
using "the latest shit" but a three years outdated system in 
$superstabledistro, I think that could solve the problem from an upstream 
point of view. It still doesn't fix it for the user, they don't have the 
latest version, but they see it's their distribution to blame and not 
upstream.

Cheers
Martin
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