Deciding on version numbers

Question

DUPLICATE

How to do version numbers?

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Hello,

So I recently saw that Groovy was released to version 1.6

Answer 1

Version numbers are arbitary, but there are some rules fo thumb (I think). Very minor changes or bugfixes usualy increase by 0.0.1, ie V1 becomes V1.0.1. Minor changes to functionality increases by 0.1.0 i.e V1.0.1 becomes V1.1.0. Major changes or re-writes get an increase of 1.0.0, i.e to V2.

That said, lot's of companies seem to try to convince customers something is major by going up by 1.0.0 when similar changes have been 0.1.0. Also, some companies who rely on support contracts will give out 0.1.0 updates for free, but charge for 1.0.0 updates.

Also, IIRC, some projects tend to signify experimental builds with odd versions and stable builds as even ones, (so V3 is dangerous, V4 is stable).