[Solved] LibreOffice Version Numbers: now 24.2.0!

[LastUnicorn]

What is happening with LibreOffice versioning numbers? Today I checked the download page and see that LibreOffice Fresh is now, apparently, at version 24.2.0. Jesus, that is one big jump in version. What does the new version do? Does it now automatically type your document for you using only the power of thought?

[robleyd]

Considering you are such an activist for transitioning to LibreOffice one might expect that you would be abreast of their Release Plan. The calendar based system has been in the pipeline for some months now.

24.2 means released in month 2 of year 24.

[LastUnicorn]

Ah! Okay robleyd. Thank you!

[MrProgrammer]

It seems that the developers have short memories and didn't learn the lession of Y2K.

[RoryOF]

This numbering seems similar to the (?)Ubuntu numbering, where releases are tagged with month and year. In the (?)Ubuntu case they release in April and October, so their sequencing is 24.04.n and 24.10.n

It seems to me to be a logical naming method.

[Zizi64]

It seems that the developers have short memories and didn't learn the lession of Y2K.

And the release date is 2024-01-31
https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blo ... fice-24-2/

Plus, it's easy to mistake for a 1924 mechanical typewriter/calculator combo...

[Hagar Delest]

I agree that very few communication have been made about that. The release plan is quite hard to find.
Rather surprising at first, it makes sense in the end.
Tends to go the Agile way, not a bad thing. But maybe they were already doing that before, I never surveyed when versions were released exactly.

[cwolan]

Information about the new numbering scheme was published on the TDF blog in August last year.

Berlin, August 21, 2023 – LibreOffice 7.6 Community, the new major release of the volunteer-supported free office suite for desktop productivity, and the last based on the historical release numbering scheme (first digit for release cycle, second digit for major release), is immediately available from www.libreoffice.org/download for Windows (Intel/AMD and ARM processors), macOS (Apple and Intel processors), and Linux. Starting from 2024, TDF will adopt calendar based-release numbering, so the next major release will be LibreOffice 24.2 in February 2024.

See also:
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/ ... 90401.html
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/ ... 90403.html

[Hagar Delest]

Thanks for that. The second link is the most informative IMHO.
Note: I admit that I don't really follow the LO community (nor the AOO community anymore).

[sveld]

year.month version numbering better reflects to users how old the version is they are on. Then as the release model for a lot of project is one of release-small-release often which makes it easier for users to move forward and keep up with updates. The previous, classic, versioning system (6.x.y, 7.x.y) generally holds users from upgrading if a 'major' version was released as most would have the idea there still must be a lot of bugs in such. Remember in the past most companies would prefer to run one version or patch behind of a solution hoping others would run into those issues and get them fixed before they themselves would need to update. From a security perspective that too is not such a good idea anymore and it's probably better to keep up with the latest. Sure there may be issues, but generally not more than running behind. Then there is the integrations with and depandancies on 3th parties that may drive one to keep up as those may only work with more recent builds. To mitigate the risk of bugs or huge code changes the release small release often model is helpfull vs the classic model of a periodically big releases with a lot of chanfes. Big releases also create expectation, what for example would a 'LibreOffice 8' need to bring to the table justifying such a version jump? Only thing I can think of is for example a GUI refresh... Changes that justify such a jump need quite some time, spanning multiple releases as those have a huge risk (according to the devs) of breaking a lot of stuff. As, even LibreOffice, has just a small team one can only spend time on one thing at the same time. So this model of small incremental updates is helpfull for devs as the unther the hood infrastructure can be worked on as well as new features for users that can be released once ready. Thinks this is why we saw LibreOffice version 7.x being tretched to 7.6 and as there is no real urgument for a 8.x or 9.x anymore instead of stretching 7.x even more the decision to go for a year.month numbering makes sense imo.

[Hagar Delest]

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense.
Such rationale should be made clear in a blog post. I think that many users will be a bit lost by the change. At first I was, but thinking about it, I now do think it is a better system.