[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Proposal to change Evergreen versioning scheme

[Lazar, Alexey Vladimirovich]

On 2013-01-04, at 08:50 , Thomas Berezansky <tsbere at mvlc.org> wrote:

> On the subject of the proposed scheme: I disagree with the last digit of the year. If we are going with any form of date-based numbering then I think we should go for last 2 digits of the year with the second number being the month. The third number would start with 0 and increment once for each maintenance release.

I agree that using the full year would be best. The main reason why I was suggesting to use the last digit of the year was because it currently happens to be 3, and the current EG version number is 2. 

> On the subject of numbered releases in general: I think we should ditch them entirely and tell people to run out of git. I also understand that is not likely to happen, but I am saying it anyway.

If were were a library running and managing our own EG installation, this would be more likely. Considering that we provide EG as a service to libraries, we have to manage and plan change. So, even though we have discussed this option, for us at this point this approach is not workable. In the future, perhaps.

> Even *with* the numbered releases I think we should ditch tarballs and point people at git *anyway*, for that matter. Which is another "not likely to happen" thing.

Different subject. Git is invaluable and seemingly irreplaceable once you know how to use it. But it does have a bit of a learning curve, as I found out in the last few of weeks. I think Git-only distribution would limit new uptake to those who are willing to learn Git first in order to try EG. I think it would be a barrier for non-developers.

It would be better to distribute EG using Linux distribution software repositories.

Aleksey Lazar
PALS
IS Developer and Intergrator
507-389-2907
http://www.pals.org/
alexey.lazar at mnsu.edu