[wp-testers] Theme Upload Bug on WordPress.org

[Carl Peterson]

On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 12:09 PM, scribu <scribu at gmail.com> wrote:

> The thing to remember though is that there aren't really any major changes
> between WP releases, from an API standpoint, since we're so dedicated to
> backwards compatibility.
>
> So, yeah, I think the current versioning makes sense.
>

I think there are extremes of both. There are plenty of projects that are
still listed as "0.x" releases when they have been stable for a long time
but are still "technically" betas. On the other hand, there are consumer
programs that are on release 15 or 20 or more so that they can sell a new
product each year as a "new version," when there may only be a few extra,
specialist, functions that really mean anything.

IMHO, the versioning should reflect a major version whenever there's a
significant conceptual shift. Even if we're still supporting old features,
there's still a major change in what we're wanting to do going forward. As
far as a guideline for what constitutes a "conceptual shift," I would say
anything that would potentially break a nontrivial number of plugins or
themes if backward compatibility weren't included is a place to start. I
know that I've thought as I've watched the releases roll by that there have
been release notes that I have read and thought that it should have been a
new major version number. 2.7 comes to mind, I think, maybe 2.5.