Dear all,
In the context of merging EPICS 7, I would like to propose to change the meaning of the "-DEV" suffix on EPICS release numbers.
Currently:
After a release has been published, "-DEV" is added to the old release number to signal a development state. The number in front of "-DEV" is the base of development.
Proposal:
After a release has been published, the release number is stepped up, then "-DEV" is added to the new release number to signal a development state. The number in front of "-DEV" is the target of development.
Reasoning:
- Consistency: The package names of practically all Linux distributions as well as the Maven tool used for building the Java parts of Base have the target release number in front of any development phase suffuxes: 4.6-rc1 is the release candidate for 4.6, and a Maven version of 5.3.2-SNAPSHOT is a snapshot release of the state that will later be released as 5.3.2.
- Version number tests: Code that tests for version numbers (EPICS_VERSION_INT etc) is hard to get right during development if the numeric version points to the previous release.
Any opinions on that plan?
Thanks,
~Ralph
