release numbers (was: [wplug] CMU installfest this Friday 7th Feb)

[Alexandros Papadopoulos]

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On Tuesday 04 February 2003 10:43, Nick Iglehart wrote:
> It has to be understood that any software's first release is going to
> be buggy.  While Microsoft releases major versions and then slowly
> updates them, Linux vendors tend to release major versions and then
> release minor versions as updates.  Any .0 release is going to have
> issues and that is why it is generally recommended to wait for .1's,
> although I generally wait for .3's.

I don't see how this relates to a distribution release number. 
Incrementing the major number is a pure marketing decision and (at 
least in this case, RH7.3 -> RH8.0) doesn't have anything *really* that 
new, compared to the previous version.

There was a thread in the linux kernel mailing list a while ago, about 
whether the next major release of the kernel should be named 2.6 or 3.0 
- - it doesn't change the product, it only changes people's perceptions. 
In this case, interestingly enough, this perception has backfired on 
Red Hat (and any other distribution I guess), resulting in the urban 
legent that all .0 releases are buggy.

When was gcc 2.96 included in the distribution as an official compiler? 
That must've been the most buggy one :-)

- -A
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