Subject: bug#68274: automake 1.16j nonnumerical version confuses scripts

From: Mike Frysinger <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2024 01:49:46 -0500

On 13 Jan 2024 15:58, Karl Berry wrote:
> Another alternative: when this came up 30-odd years ago, rms changed the
> GNU maintainers doc to suggest x.y.90, .91, etc. for pretests. Doing
> that would at least have the benefit of following a recommendation, and
> as a side effect, would also fix jami's assumption (poor practice though
> it is, IMHO).
> https://gnu.org/prep/maintain/html_node/Test-Releases.html#Test-Releases
> 
> Doing an ls -R on alpha (fp:/srv/data/ftp-mirror/alpha/gnu), it seems
> (rough guess with some grep counting) the .90 convention is by far the
> most common approach (a couple thousand), followed by the suffix letter
> a la automake (~750 releases), followed by -rc (~360). -hexid and -date
> are both trailing the field. Other random conventions also present.
> 
> It all feels like bikeshedding to me, so my inclination is to do
> nothing.  If we do change, I think we should use .90.  --best, karl.

using .90 is certainly better than single-letters.  if you're fine with
it, then let's switch.

i cut more inline responses to avoid further bikeshedding on the topic.
we can agree to disagree.
-mike