[General] Milestone and general naming, terminology

[Ted Leung]

Version number discussions are always controversial.

I have only a few constraints on version numbering.   I think that it  
is very important that we not use the Alpha and Beta designations.    
One thing that our dealings with the the press and blogs over the  
last year should have taught us is that people do not read.   They  
will see the terms Alpha and Beta and reinterpret them in whatever  
frame of reference they are in, and it will cause us unnecessary  
problems.   We should keep the goals that we associate with those  
designations, and assign them to numerically labeled releases

Firefox 0.7 was (debatably) the first usable version of Firefox.   
There were no Alphas and Betas involved, but that didn't stop people  
from recognizing that Firefox had reached a usable state.


On Aug 29, 2006, at 2:57 PM, Priscilla Chung wrote:

> Thank you Heikki for starting this discussion!! I've been asking  
> the same questions on the Cosmo-dev list recently as well. =)
>
> On Aug 29, 2006, at 11:41 AM, Heikki Toivonen wrote:
>
>> What is Cosmo's milestone numbering scheme?
>>
> So far there has been a proposal on the Cosmo-dev list to call each  
> milestone 0.5M1, 0.5M2 etc. though nothing is set yet. Perhaps I  
> was the only one who was unfamiliar with the use of 'M's, but as  
> Ted pointed out, it is used in the Eclipse Foundation among  
> other's. If it is widely used in the development community then I'm  
> fine with it.
>
>
>> Next are the terms alpha and beta. Chandler uses alpha to mark a  
>> product
>> that is usable inside of OSAF. Beta is something we want the  
>> public to
>> give a try; think "Google Beta".
>>
>> I believe Cosmo is using beta to mean feature complete; can you  
>> confirm?
>>
> No, I believe the term beta would mean people outside the OSAF  
> organization will be able to use Cosmo, but it is NOT feature  
> complete. Opposed to Alpha, which people inside the OSAF  
> organization, everyone would be encouraged to 'dog-food' Cosmo.
>
>>
>> I believe we should unify what alpha and beta mean between the  
>> projects.
>
> Whole heartedly! Since things are not set in stone yet for the next  
> milestone release of Cosmo, this is a good time to decide on a  
> unified numbering scheme.
>
> Cheers, -Priscilla
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