.. _dev.versioning:

=====================
Date-based versioning
=====================

The different projects maintained by the Lino Team depend quite
strongly on each other. This is why we adopted a date-based versioning
system.

Date-based versioning is similar to what Ubuntu uses: "Ubuntu releases
on a time based cycle, rather than a feature driven one. Sometimes
this can generate confusion, especially when people ask for a new
feature to be added."  (`ubuntu.com
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/TimeBasedReleases>`__)

For us, "Version 16.10" means "The version we started to release in
October 2016". If a particular project decides that a bugfix release
is needed, then they would call it 16.10.1 (and so on).

Note that months before September should be numbered 1 to 9 and not 01
to 09 because otherwise setuptools will normalize them and issue a
UserWarning.
(`Setuptools issue 308 <https://github.com/pypa/setuptools/issues/308>`__).