Re: Considering a version 8 at some point...

I wouldn't mind sticking to version 7 for as long as there are no dramatic new features or API changes that'd justify a version bump.

I don't like the current trend of bumping version numbers almost every year. For example, it took about 10 years to go from gcc 4.0 to gcc 5.0. Roughly 2005 to 2015 I guess. Now it's 2020 and we're at gcc 10.0. Chrome is now at version 83.0. I think this is a bit silly. IMHO versions should only be bumped in case of dramatic changes or improvements over the previous release.

$0.02

On 30.06.2020 at 13:48 Daniel Stenberg via curl-library wrote:

> Hi friends,

> I've mentioned before that I'd like to see us move on to version 8 before the
> minor number reaches 100 to avoid confusions. I think we're at too large
> numbers now - they get hard to remember and are easily mixed up.

> curl version 7.1 was released on August 7 2000 and we've stuck to version 7
> ever since. I wanted to stick to version 7 for as long as we remained API
> compatable - even if we ignored a few chances to bump the number when we
> bumped the SONAME a few times in the early 2000s.

> In October 2006 we shipped curl 7.16.0 and we haven't bumped the major SONAME
> number since. My strong hope is that we never will again.

> So, I think we need to consider doing a version 8 release without an SONAME
> bump. I think we should just do it at some point, without putting many
> requirements of any new bells or whistles. Similar to how the Linux kernel
> does it, if you will.

> My current thinking, as I mentioned in some release video recently, is that we
> make our 200th release version 8.0. Not because it actually means anything,
> but because it gives us something to aim at. And its a fine, even and aligned
> number.

> The release coming tomorrow is going to become version 7.71.1 and is our 193rd
> release since the beginning. If we go to version 8.0 on release 200, it means
> only 6 more release in the version 7 series and if we manage to do full
> release cycles (which is probably a bit optimistic) we could perhaps be at
> version 8.0 in a little less than a year from now. With a few short release
> cycles added to the mix, maybe already in the early 2021.

> What do you think?

-- 
Best regards,
 Andreas Falkenhahn                            mailto:andreas_at_falkenhahn.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: https://cool.haxx.se/list/listinfo/curl-library
Etiquette:   https://curl.haxx.se/mail/etiquette.html