Calibration wrote:So, I have a comment. If you continue to increment release versions by 0.01 then that chart suggest version 1.0 will be out in about 17 years
I'm, not a professional software developer although I write a bit of code from time to time. I won't ask when you think 1.0 will be out, but what drives the numbers you assign to releases and will there be any jumps? [...]
Just expanding on wareya's post: Have a look at this extract from my FAQ thread:
Atahualpa wrote:
[...]
[2] Project Status
You've just released version 0.40.0. Another 60 releases to go until version 1.0?
The OpenMW team uses the so-called Semantic Versioning to index OpenMW releases. A version label consists of three numbers, separated by a point. The first number refers to the current main version. Since OpenMW has not reached its first set of main goals, the current main version is 0. It will be increased to 1 as soon as we've reached all of the goals I've introduced in the first part of this series.
The second number indicates the minor version count. It is increased with every release, 40 of which we had until today. Accordingly, the number is by no means a percentage value of our progress. If you want to convert the current version into such a value, I'd say that we've released version 0.95 or 0.96. The minor version counter is reset to 0 when the major version counter is increased.
The last number represents maintenance releases or patches. These are small updates in case of severe errors popping up after a minor version's release. The patch counter is reset to 0 once another minor version release has arrived. Oh, and don't get confused: We often skip the last number because we are lazy as hell!
OpenMW doesn't actually follow the rules of semantic versioning. If it did, it would increase the major version number every time an "incompatible" change happens, like switching to different libraries.
This isn't actually a problem. SemVer is not well-defined for anything but low level system libraries like glib. http://wareya.moe/?versioning
wareya wrote:OpenMW doesn't actually follow the rules of semantic versioning. If it did, it would increase the major version number every time an "incompatible" change happens, like switching to different libraries.
This isn't actually a problem. SemVer is not well-defined for anything but low level system libraries like glib. http://wareya.moe/?versioning
Read http://semver.org, Point 4 and 5 in particular.
Since we're not at 1.0 yet, we don't actually have a baseline release that we could be incompatible with, instead all our changes are to be counted as "incompatible" and "API breaking" until we reach that point.
Point 4 literally means that a version number with a major value of 0 is never a semantic versioning version number. None of the rules of semantic versioning apply to versions with a major value of 0, except the rule that none of the rules of semantic versioning apply. You can even make two releases with the same version number that have different behavior because "anything may change at any time" covers that.
OpenMW may well use semantic versioning once it changes its major version number to 1, but the rules of semantic versioning certainly don't apply right now, and aren't the reason that the digits don't work the same way as fractional decimal numbers, they're just how any good version numbering system works.
Calibration wrote:So, I have a comment. If you continue to increment release versions by 0.01 then that chart suggest version 1.0 will be out in about 17 years
I'm, not a professional software developer although I write a bit of code from time to time. I won't ask when you think 1.0 will be out, but what drives the numbers you assign to releases and will there be any jumps?
Version numbers are not fractions. End of discussion.
Minor elaboration. Version number gets incremented with each release. When the project's "1.0" goals are achieved, then 1.0 will be released. Whether that comes after 0.43 or 0.44 or whichever subsequent release is down to whether a) the goals are acheived and b) the project leads are happy with the shape/stability/etc of that particular release.
Based on idling about this place for a few years, I'd say expect 1.0 in 2018.
Thanks for the enlightenment. I would just comment that to the average potential user of OpenMW it may not be apparent just how close the current version is to your goals purely in terms of functionality. I'd image the perception you are still a long way away could put off potential users from giving it a try. If you want to be more encouraging then you could make your progress in functionality more explicit in the FAQ, i.e., in the "What can you expect from the current release" paragraph, on this website. Just a thought.
Calibration wrote:[...] I would just comment that to the average potential user of OpenMW it may not be apparent just how close the current version is to your goals purely in terms of functionality. I'd image the perception you are still a long way away could put off potential users from giving it a try. If you want to be more encouraging then you could make your progress in functionality more explicit in the FAQ, i.e., in the "What can you expect from the current release" paragraph, on this website. [...]
*sigh* That is a discussion we have every once a while. We could also use a banner on our start page indicating the project's curren status. In the end, we only need someone to actually implement/write/update that stuff -- but that's the most difficult part. If you want to help us in this regard, you're very welcome.
