[AppStream] Release tags for major and minor versions

[Nate Graham]

Hello Appstream folks!

This has come up twice now in downstream conversations I've had with developers, so I thought I'd bring it up here.

Developers want to be sure that if they adopt <release> tags in their appstream files, software center apps will show all of a major release's minor release tags as well, and not just the latest minor release tag.

For example, if they release a major version 2.0, they want to make sure that when they release minor versions 2.01, 2.02, and 2.1, software center apps will show the tag for 2.0 and all of the minor release tags, not just the last one for App 2.1.

Right now, if a client like KDE Discover or GNOME Software wants to implement this, they would have to parse the release numbers--which is very error prone given the variety of versioning schemes out there.

What would be the best way to support this use case? Can AppStream handle this for clients, or will clients have to parse the release numbers?

Nate