• Versionflation

    From Lawrence D?Oliveiro@3:633/10 to All on Fri Jan 16 08:55:35 2026
    I wonder whether there?s a name for this: I know of one or two
    open-source projects which started out with a series of version
    numbers of the form ?1.x?, only to decide to drop the ?1.? at some
    point (before getting to version ?2.x?) and just use the ?x? part as
    the version number.

    I first came across this with Java, where the version numbers got up
    to 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, and then these were renumbered 8, 9, 10, and the
    next one was version 11.

    This also happened with the Asterisk PBX software, where the stable
    releases have even version numbers: these got up to 1.6 and then 1.8,
    then the next one after that was version 10, and we are now up to
    version 22.

    I believe this also happened earlier with Emacs, but the only official information I can find indicates that the first public release was
    numbered 13, from 1985.

    Can anyone shed any further light on this? Do you know of any other
    examples?

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Niklas Karlsson@3:633/10 to All on Fri Jan 16 11:43:30 2026
    On 2026-01-16, Lawrence D?Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
    I wonder whether there?s a name for this: I know of one or two
    open-source projects which started out with a series of version
    numbers of the form ?1.x?, only to decide to drop the ?1.? at some
    point (before getting to version ?2.x?) and just use the ?x? part as
    the version number.

    I first came across this with Java, where the version numbers got up
    to 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, and then these were renumbered 8, 9, 10, and the
    next one was version 11.

    This also happened with the Asterisk PBX software, where the stable
    releases have even version numbers: these got up to 1.6 and then 1.8,
    then the next one after that was version 10, and we are now up to
    version 22.

    I believe this also happened earlier with Emacs, but the only official information I can find indicates that the first public release was
    numbered 13, from 1985.

    Can anyone shed any further light on this? Do you know of any other
    examples?

    Not open source at the time, but Solaris 2.6 (July 1997) was followed by Solaris 7 (November 1998).

    Niklas
    --
    Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives at passport control in Poland:
    "Nationality?" asks the immigration officer. "German" she replies. "Occupation?" "No, just here for a few days."
    -- Via John Forster

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Al Kossow@3:633/10 to All on Fri Jan 16 08:05:34 2026
    On 1/16/26 12:55 AM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
    Do you know of any other
    examples?


    The Macintosh operating system, which was stuck at 10 for over a decade
    until they went to yearly releases and dropped the X



    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From David Wade@3:633/10 to All on Fri Jan 16 21:06:02 2026
    On 16/01/2026 16:05, Al Kossow wrote:
    On 1/16/26 12:55 AM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:
    Do you know of any other
    examples?


    The Macintosh operating system, which was stuck at 10 for over a decade
    until they went to yearly releases and dropped the X


    Well Honeywell's GCOS3 never got to a Release 5.x. I understand they
    promised certain features in R 5.x so it stuck at 4.x then 4.xy...
    .. then they renamed it to GCOS8

    Dave

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Nuno Silva@3:633/10 to All on Fri Jan 16 23:35:49 2026
    On 2026-01-16, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:

    In article <10ke97q$1m259$2@dont-email.me>,
    David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> wrote:
    On 16/01/2026 16:05, Al Kossow wrote:
    On 1/16/26 12:55 AM, Lawrence Dƒ??Oliveiro wrote:
    Do you know of any other
    examples?


    The Macintosh operating system, which was stuck at 10 for over a decade
    until they went to yearly releases and dropped the X


    Well Honeywell's GCOS3 never got to a Release 5.x. I understand they >>promised certain features in R 5.x so it stuck at 4.x then 4.xy...
    .. then they renamed it to GCOS8

    Dave

    TeX is famously converging on pi...

    And Metafont towards e :-)

    --
    Nuno Silva

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Charlie Gibbs@3:633/10 to All on Sat Jan 17 04:37:37 2026
    On 2026-01-16, Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:

    On 1/16/26 12:55 AM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

    Do you know of any other examples?

    The Macintosh operating system, which was stuck at 10 for over
    a decade until they went to yearly releases and dropped the X

    Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP, 7...

    --
    /~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
    \ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
    X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
    / \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Nuno Silva@3:633/10 to All on Sat Jan 17 10:33:22 2026
    On 2026-01-17, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

    On 2026-01-16, Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:

    On 1/16/26 12:55 AM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

    Do you know of any other examples?

    The Macintosh operating system, which was stuck at 10 for over
    a decade until they went to yearly releases and dropped the X

    Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP, 7...

    3.0, 3.1, 4.0, 4.10, NT5.0, NT5.1, NT6.1 :-)

    (I think Windows 10 is the big outlier?)

    --
    Nuno Silva

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Chris Ahlstrom@3:633/10 to All on Sat Jan 17 06:53:48 2026
    Charlie Gibbs wrote this post by blinking in Morse code:

    On 2026-01-16, Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:

    On 1/16/26 12:55 AM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

    Do you know of any other examples?

    The Macintosh operating system, which was stuck at 10 for over
    a decade until they went to yearly releases and dropped the X

    Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP, 7...

    You left out Windows Nein!

    --
    The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
    -- Bruce Ediger, bediger@teal.csn.org, on X interfaces

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From John Levine@3:633/10 to All on Sat Jan 17 21:19:05 2026
    According to Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid>:
    On 2026-01-17, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

    On 2026-01-16, Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:

    On 1/16/26 12:55 AM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

    Do you know of any other examples?

    The Macintosh operating system, which was stuck at 10 for over
    a decade until they went to yearly releases and dropped the X

    Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP, 7...

    3.0, 3.1, 4.0, 4.10, NT5.0, NT5.1, NT6.1 :-)

    (I think Windows 10 is the big outlier?)

    I've heard that Microsoft skipped from Windows 8 to Windows 10 because
    there is a lot of badly written code that checks for '9' and assumes
    it's running on Win 95 or 98. From what I've seen of Windows code,
    I can believe it.

    --
    Regards,
    John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
    Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)
  • From Charlie Gibbs@3:633/10 to All on Sun Jan 18 01:35:19 2026
    On 2026-01-17, John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:

    According to Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid>:

    On 2026-01-17, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

    On 2026-01-16, Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:

    On 1/16/26 12:55 AM, Lawrence D?Oliveiro wrote:

    Do you know of any other examples?

    The Macintosh operating system, which was stuck at 10 for over
    a decade until they went to yearly releases and dropped the X

    Windows 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, 2000, XP, 7...

    3.0, 3.1, 4.0, 4.10, NT5.0, NT5.1, NT6.1 :-)

    (I think Windows 10 is the big outlier?)

    I've heard that Microsoft skipped from Windows 8 to Windows 10 because
    there is a lot of badly written code that checks for '9' and assumes
    it's running on Win 95 or 98. From what I've seen of Windows code,
    I can believe it.

    That makes sense. On the other hand, since Windows 8 was so badly
    received, perhaps they wanted to skip ahead to a totally different
    number - one that just happened to look like what Apple was doing.
    (I do like the "Windows Nein" quip, though.)

    --
    /~\ Charlie Gibbs | Growth for the sake of
    \ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | growth is the ideology
    X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | of the cancer cell.
    / \ if you read it the right way. | -- Edward Abbey

    --- PyGate Linux v1.5.2
    * Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)