[Cosmo-dev] On Release naming/numbering

[Ted Leung]

Hi all

Late last month, we had a bit of a discussion regarding having  
milestones and what they would be named/number:  <http:// 
lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/cosmo-dev/2006-August/001401.html>

Early this month there was a discussion on the general list regarding  
numbering, naming and the use of the terms alpha and beta: <http:// 
lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/general/2006-September/ 
000426.html>.   My understanding of this discussion was that it was  
to cover Cosmo as well as Chandler, so I'd just like to reiterate the  
main points of the general@ proposal and propose that we adopt them:

- drop the use of the word "beta" in favor of "preview" as the  
designation of the future release that is intended for users outside  
of OSAF
- use the term "dogfood" when referring to releases that are still  
primarily for "brave/hardy" souls and people at OSAF
- use the modifier "alpha" to designate intermediate steps along the  
way to a release -- this is in contrast to my proposal of the  
modifier "M" for this usage.   I think that it is important to be  
consistent with other OSAF projects on this.

To make this concrete:

Let's say that we will have 3 intermediate steps along the way to the  
0.5 release.   Those steps would be labeled

0.4 (already released)
    0.5alpha1
    0.5alpha2
    0.5alpha3
    0.5rc1 ... 0.5rcn
0.5

We have yet to determine which of the Cosmo releases will be get the  
"Dogfood" and "Preview" labels, but these labels will be attached to  
particular releases, and the terms will not appear in release  
artifacts such as tarballs, etc.   Once we solidify the sticky plan  
for Cosmo, we'll be able to do that.

Ted