What do Subversion version numbers mean?

Ok. I think the fact that everybody has his own idea about minor / micro
version changes is getting the version numbering thread in the way of reaching a
conclusion.

So it has been dragging on and on without comming to real consensus.
Examples of how it can be done (or should not) have referenced the Linux kernel,
Mozilla, X, Gnome and several others. Every example pointed out weaknesses and
strengths in the schema used by the project mentioned. Also - and I understand
we were talking about the future here - there was a lot of 'what if'-ing
going on: what if we changed a public interface, what if we had to raise the ABI
version number, etc.

So - and correct me if I'm wrong - from this I concluded that we might want
to have some discussion on what we want to communicate to the world when
raising only the patch level, or the minor version number. And what type of
changes is acceptable within that strategy. After we agree to that, we should have
a much more directed discussion about which numbering scheme we need to
achieve just that.

Some of the questions to be answered (while being far from complete):

- What requirements do we state for all patchlevel versions?
  * No incompatible protocol changes (ie. all 1.0.x servers can speak to any
1.0.x client)
  * No database filesystem format changes
  * Full forward and backward API and ABI compatibility
  * No new functionality at program level
  
   The type of changes which can be done without violating these bounds:
      - Fix crashes and memory leaks
      - Fix inconsistencies in user presented output
      - Fix documentation

- What requirements do we state for all minor level versions?
  * No incompatible protocol changes
  * Full forward API and ABI compatibility
  * New functionality

- What requirements do we state for all major level versions?
  * No need for compatibility with any other version apart from the fact
     that both a 1.x and a 2.x version can be installed at the same time.

I gave my own opinion above. Maybe others should state their preference?

bye,

Erik.

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