(Short?) merge window reminder

[eschvoca]

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 1:41 PM, Linus Torvalds
<torvalds at linux-foundation.org> wrote:
> On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 10:36 AM, H. Peter Anvin <hpa at zytor.com> wrote:
>>
>> I think this whole discussion misses the essence of the new development
>> model, which is that we no longer do these kinds of feature-based major
>> milestones.
>
> Indeed.
>
> It's not about features. It hasn't been about features for forever.
>
> So a renumbering would be purely about dropping the numbers to
> something smaller and more easily recognized. The ABI wouldn't change.
> The API wouldn't change. There wouldn't be any big "because we finally
> did xyz".
>

Me, a nobody end user, would prefer a version number that corresponded
to the date.  Something like:

%y.%m.<stable patch>
%Y.%m.<stable patch>

Then users would know the significance of the number and when a vendor
says they support Linux 11.09 the user will immediately know if they
are up to date.

Using the date also clearly communicates it is not about features.
When there is a 3.0 (4.0) release people expect big new features and
API/ABI breakage.

My 2 cents.