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

[Rogan Hamby]

I can't speak for Galen but I inferred he was using it in the context of a
increasing sequence (rather than say decreasing which would make no sense
here) and monotonically means preserving the order for the members of a set
of values.  I.e., it keeps order for the increasing versioning numbers in a
logical ways by the set rules rather than being random or arbitrary.  There
are a few more points for the calculus crowd in there but I was an English
major so I don't know nuthing about that.  :)




On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 1:29 PM, Lori Bowen Ayre <lori.ayre at galecia.com>wrote:

> For those of us not up-to-date in our Order Theory studies, would Galen
> care to explain what monotonically refers to in this discussion.
>
> Intrigued in Petaluma
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 10:04 AM, Rogan Hamby <rogan.hamby at yclibrary.net>wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure I agree that version numbers aren't important to marketing
>> Evergreen.  Non-techie administrators have been trained to see large
>> numbers before the dot meaning that there should be a lot of major features
>> and that small numbers after it means that those features are mature and
>> bug tested and that if they go to a new major dot release that they should
>> be prepared to do a lot of training.   I am continually marketing Evergreen
>> upgrades to my existing Evergreen directors and would like to get them on a
>> twice a year upgrade schedule with the new releases.  So long as they are
>> .x upgrades I think I can convince them of that.  X.x releases where it's
>> moving to 3.0 or 4.0 I know will invoke major concerns for the training and
>> preparation time.  This is a short hand used by people who don't understand
>> the release notes sometimes to get an indication of how much effort their
>> front line staff will have in adapting to it.
>>
>> If we move to a new versioning scheme I just want it to have enough of an
>> advantage that it will be worth re-educating people who can't follow the
>> discussion that's on this list.
>>
>> But I do want to give a +1 to Galen on general principle of using the
>> work "monotonically" as I will anyone who uses a term from order theory.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 11:41 AM, Galen Charlton <gmc at esilibrary.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On Fri, Jan 4, 2013 at 7:07 AM, Bill Erickson <berick at esilibrary.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> If we decide to change, I would also vote for the Ubuntu-style naming
>>>> scheme Thomas describes.  (IIRC, Jason S. was also a proponent of this
>>>> scheme).
>>>
>>>
>>> All that I ask of a version number that it increase monotonically, not
>>> be unreasonably long, and that if there are any semantics attached to the
>>> version numbering scheme that set expectations for ease of upgrades [1],
>>> that they be adhered to.
>>>
>>> I have no objection to switching to an Ubuntu-style scheme (so if we're
>>> voting, consider this a 0), though I would also point out that doing so
>>> means that we would lose the ability to increment the version number
>>> significantly to signal a truly major new release.  For example, without
>>> reading the release notes, there would be nothing to indicate whether (say)
>>> Evergreen 13.10 adds just a few nice features over 13.04 or if it adds two
>>> new major functional modules.
>>>
>>> That said, I don't think that version numbers are of that much
>>> consequence in marketing Evergreen -- the advent of major new
>>> features  (serials! acquisitions! robotic book returners!) matters rather
>>> more to library staff who are anticipating an upgrade.
>>>
>>> [1] For example, the PostgreSQL project's policy at
>>> http://www.postgresql.org/support/versioning/ specifies that minor
>>> release upgrades will never require a dump/restore of the database.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Galen
>>> --
>>>
>>> Galen Charlton
>>> Manager of Implementation
>>> Equinox Software, Inc. / The Open Source Experts
>>> email:  gmc at esilibrary.com
>>> direct: +1 770-709-5581
>>> cell:   +1 404-984-4366
>>> skype:  gmcharlt
>>> web:    http://www.esilibrary.com/
>>> Supporting Koha and Evergreen: http://koha-community.org &
>>> http://evergreen-ils.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ----------------------------
>> Rogan Hamby
>> Headquarters Manager, York County Library System
>>
>> "You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to
>> suit me."
>> -- C.S. Lewis <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis>
>>
>
>


-- 
----------------------------
Rogan Hamby
Headquarters Manager, York County Library System

"You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit
me."
-- C.S. Lewis <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis>
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