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Doesn’t this break just about every dumb packaging system that uses numeric components for versions only? Mac pkgs, gems, older Solaris etc?

The immediate need is to inform people using the “master” branch that they’re using unreleased software, and I think changing the version string will help.

Coming up with a way to number pre-release packages is tricky. For example, Tom creates Puppet pre-release packages with names like “puppet-2.6.3-0.1” where “-0.1” is the RC1, and a “puppet-2.6.3-1” with a “-1” is the full release. For really primitive packaging systems, you may need to give up and just use a different product name and date-based numbering like “puppet_dashboard_devel-20101129.2” for the second bugfix release of that day.

It’d be ideal to devise a common solution for all the Puppet products. I don’t think that Puppet itself solves this problem well, where the “puppet.rb” version is stayed as “2.6.2” throughout the “2.6.3” development, and then became “2.6.3” when the RC1 was released — I find that misleading because the number is being changed both too late and too early.

Thoughts?

Except that anything but x.y.z fails for Gems…. That’s the major reason we’ve had challenges with numbering. Happy never to package for Gems of course!

James Turnbull wrote:

Except that anything but x.y.z fails for Gems…. That’s the major reason we’ve had challenges with numbering. Happy never to package for Gems of course!

What about adding a special banner that people will see each time they run development and/or pre-release version … and if they do not wish to see it, then they can export (toggle?) an environment variable like i.e. DISABLE_PUPPET_DEVELOPMENT_NOTICE=1 etc :–)

I have seen at least two projects doing something like that during my “ways” with the systems …

Just an idea … :–)

KW