Re: Changes to handling version numbers internally

Two issues with the new versioning ideas:

-  The version number would be set in configure.in as in VERSION='1.2.3'

-  So, we have to change and autoconf that periodically, instead of just  having a simple 'version.h' file that we vi?
  It doesn't sound to me like something that *belongs* in configure.in, as  it is not required for any tests that
configurerequires ...
 

What about having a single file (e.g., VERSION) somewhere that
contains the relevant information (e.g., it only contains 1.2.3).  Any
Makefiles that need it could cat the value into a make variable and
use it; any C files that need it could include it as appropriate.
Alternatively, though probably not so cleanly in some ways, configure
itself could use the value to define a variable that would be
propagated as needed (probably only Makefile.global and config.h).

Another point:
  Right now I think we should set it to '7.1devel', later to '7.1b1',  etc. It's really quite wrong to label it '7.1'
alreadynow.
 

I suggest a numbering sequence that is strictly orderable.  This is
really useful for the versioning of the NetBSD code, because the
location of each version within a largaer sequence is immediately
obvious.  The sequence goes something like:

trunk    -+--> 1.4A ---> 1.4B ---> 1.4C ---> ... -+--> 1.5A ---> 1.5B ---> ...         |
      |         |                                       |
 
releases  +--> 1.4Alpha ---> 1.4Beta ---> 1.4     +--> 1.5Alpha ---> 1.5Beta ---> 1.5
      |                                          |                                          +--> ... ---> 1.4.1 --->
...

This may not exactly correspond to the NetBSD scheme, but the general
points should be clear: the main trunk versions are incremented in a
nicely sortable order whenever major interfaces change (corresponding
presumably to our need for initdb), and the branches have a similar
clear ordering.  This seems preferable to using versions like 7.1devel
or 7.1b1 which are less formalized and less sortable.

Cheers,
Brook