The next release of OpenMandriva Lx will return to Mandrake Linux roots <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandriva_Linux#Table_of_versions> and use a revision number instead of year number. This decision has been discussed democratically amongst members. The change will affect only the brand (the public releases name). The suggestion first came during the Prague meeting. It was decided to postpone the discussion until the second release was complete. After OpenMandriva Lx 2014 was released, the time had come to return to this topic, and start on the path that we had first chosen; that is to include all the members of the association in decisions about strategy. The pros arguments were the following:
- pressure from the calendar avoided
- being free of the year limitation we’ll be free to adapt our release cycle
- it will avoid the release appearing old. For example OM 2015 would seem old on January 2016
- to those engaged in managing, marketing and communication, it helps the distribution to appear more modern and appealing.
To avoid additional technical difficulties if it was decided to change the numbering system it was agreed that we would not change the pattern of what is called the “distepoch” *. This is the number that follows package names. These will continue to follow the calendar year for ease of update and of package comparision. During the discussion, there have been some concerns on the following topics:
- Risk of confusion. Maybe changing the pattern may confuse the users. On this topic there was a precedent, when ROSA changed from year to revision number, but kept the same pattern of distepoch, there was no confusion of users. So providing we communicate the change effectively, we are confident to be able to do the same
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- Lose our identity. Another concern was thought to be a risk of losing some part of our identity if we follow what is done in most other distributions. For others it seemed that it was more appealing and modern, even pragmatic: if most distros use a versioning number, it’s for a reason.
- Difficult to know which is the latest release because of the loss of a year related release number. Another concern was that while with a year based release number it’s obvious which is the latest issue, with a revision number based approach people may download a random release and perhaps test a very outdated one. Arguments against retaining this were that year based release numbers were restrictive as they demand the production of at least one distribution per year, and ideally should be either close to the start or to the end of the year for it to indicate proper currency. It also had the potential to become more confusing when longer term support for distributions is desirable as it has the effect of making a release appear out of date when it is not. A release number that’s not related to the current year avoids these issues though it is important to have publicly accessible record of the release dates and numbers. This change does not stop users users downloading old releases, in ignorance of the fact that later ones are are available or by their own will. This issue could be be addressed in the om-welcome program which could check the currency of the release at start-up and point the user to the location of the latest version.
After a period of discussion a vote was taken with the result that a significant majority of members participating in the discussions agreed on changing the release numbering system. As next release will be our third, it will simply become OpenMandriva Lx 3 (and keep its codename Einsteinium). * Notice: distepoch aka development number aka %disttag