What does this gain you? It doesn't matter what the version number is, so why not make it a simple integer? Version numbers aren't a way to communicate feature changes, you do that in release notes.
Your attitude towards version numbers is exactly what this change seeks to eliminate.
Version numbers are useful. They allow you to communicate a lot about the risk/reward involved in an upgrade without having to read the release notes.
When presented with 2.3.12 -> 2.3.45 it's a pretty easy call to accept 33 patch releases without much investigation.
2.3.12 -> 3.0.1 Whoa, we should stage this and make sure we aren't going to screw ourselves on compat issues.
The target audience isn't Joe user, it's professional courtesy to your peers in the field. You're welcome to add (or not) some kind of marketing "version" beyond that, but really, it's valuable.
I actually agree with c2k as major and minor releases do tend to give more information than the integer releases.
I read a post the other week about a corporate user that was giving grief that they had only just finished testing firefox 4 for corporate roll out and firefox 5 had been released.
To corporate users, this situation is a nightmare. There is no clear definition of a major update
I prefer the old release schedule of major.minor releases. I like the rapid development it now has but I just don't like this rapid release version numbering.
On a side note, since Firefox changed the way they were doing everything, I switched to Chrome and so did everyone in my office. None us swayed each others decisions, we all felt the same about Firefox. They have lost scope of what is important, releasing stable versions of software. Firefox 4 was dreadful, 5 was a little better. I feel like there is no effort in making the release stable, it's just "let's sort it in the next one". I feel like they are always going to be chasing their tales.
Before anyone comments, I know Chrome has the same release schedule but I feel they are doing it a lot slicker than Mozilla is right now. Firefox changed the world for me back in 2004 and now they have lost the edge.
Before anyone comments, I know Chrome has the same release schedule but I feel they are doing it a lot slicker than Mozilla is right now.
--------------------
No, you're right ... the problem with Firefox is that they changed the way the were doing it mid way (which is odd) while Chrome has been doing it like that from te jump
It does matter. There is a concept that there are major releases and minor releases. Major releases mostly introduce features, minor releases fix bugs and other annoyances.
By making version number a simple integer, you lose the information whenever there were some major changes or not.
Your attitude towards version numbers is exactly what this change seeks to eliminate.