How do you know what version number to use?

Question

Here\'s one I have always wondered about...

Please excuse my naivety, but - How do you decide what version number to name your software?

I assume, when someb

Answer 1

In the case of a library, the version number tells you about the level of compatibility between two releases, and thus how difficult an upgrade will be.

A bug fix release needs to preserve binary, source, and serialization compatibility.

Minor releases mean different things to different projects, but usually they don't need to preserve source compatibility.

Major version numbers can break all three forms.

I wrote more about the rationale here.