Version and serial numbers
willi...@aol.com
commercial software products? Do you restart the serial number from 1
when the major or minor version number changes, or does it keep going,
i.e. version 1 serial 1 - 5, version 2 serial 6 - xx etc?
Thank you in advance ...
Paul E. Bennett
The version numbering scheme (for which I haven't found a suitably quotable
reference document or standard) is based in Major.Minor.Trivial impacts on
the software in question.
The Trivial is at the level of correcting spelling mistakes. No change to
functionality or interfaces at all.
The Minor is a small improvement that maintains the overall structure of the
software that will have minimal impact on other connecting modules.
The Major is anything mre than the Minor level of change including
restructuring.
Serial numbers are a unique number for each copy of the software. This can
sometimes be linked to licence codes.
--
********************************************************************
Paul E. Bennett...............<email://Paul_E....@topmail.co.uk>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy
Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972
Tel: +44 (0)1235-811095
Going Forth Safely ..... EBA. www.electric-boat-association.org.uk..
********************************************************************
Guy Macon
Paul E. Bennett wrote:
>
>willi...@aol.com wrote:
>
>> How is the version number and serial number typically coordinated on
>> commercial software products? Do you restart the serial number from 1
>> when the major or minor version number changes, or does it keep going,
>> i.e. version 1 serial 1 - 5, version 2 serial 6 - xx etc?
>>
>> Thank you in advance ...
>
>The version numbering scheme (for which I haven't found a suitably quotable
>reference document or standard) is based in Major.Minor.Trivial impacts on
>the software in question.
>
>The Trivial is at the level of correcting spelling mistakes. No change to
>functionality or interfaces at all.
>
>The Minor is a small improvement that maintains the overall structure of the
>software that will have minimal impact on other connecting modules.
>
>The Major is anything more than the Minor level of change including
>restructuring.
>
>Serial numbers are a unique number for each copy of the software. This can
>sometimes be linked to licence codes.
The above system has been fine-tuned through long experience so as
to meet the needs of the users and developers. Alas there are times
when a commercial organization has other needs, typically driven by
marketing and sales.
Consider this sequence:
MS-DOS 1.0
MS-DOS 1.25
MS-DOS 2.0
MS-DOS 2.11
MS-DOS 3.0
MS-DOS 3.1
MS-DOS 3.3
MS-DOS 4.0
MS-DOS 4.01
MS-DOS 5.0
MS-DOS 5.0a
MS-DOS 6.0
MS-DOS 6.2
MS-DOS 6.21
MS-DOS 6.22
Windows 1.0
Windows 2.0
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1
Windows for Workgroups 3.1
Windows for Workgroups 3.11
Windows NT 3.1
Windows NT 3.5
Windows NT 3.51
Windows NT 4.0
...which is pretty much according to the described numbering scheme.
At the above point, Microsoft made a major change in it's versioning
scheme, making it so that you could not buy a version of NT newer
than 4.0, but instead had to apply a service pack:
Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 1
Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 2
Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 3
Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4
Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 5
Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6
Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6a
..at which point Microsoft announced the end of NT service
packs (because users figured out that buggy service packs
often caused major problems and started calling service packs
by different names such as:
Windows NT 4.0 Post Service Pack 6a Security Rollup
...and soon third parties started taking up the ball:
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/security/Do-it-yourself-Service-Pack--/features/80682/0
Skipping past the "name windows after the year" era, fast forward
to today, when instead of numbered versions, we have "Editions":
Windows Vista Starter Edition
Windows Vista Home Basic Edition
Windows Vista Home 64-bit Basic Edition
Windows Vista Home Premium Edition
Windows Vista Home 64-bit Premium Edition
Windows Vista Business Edition
Windows Vista Business 64-bit Edition
Windows Vista Enterprise Edition
Windows Vista Enterprise 64-bit Edition
Windows Vista Ultimate Edition
Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit Edition
While the server version of Vista combines the year
scheme and the edition scheme:
Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition
Windows Server Core 2008 Standard Edition
Windows Server 2008 Standard 64-bit Edition
Windows Server Core 2008 Standard 64-bit Edition
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server Core 2008 Enterprise Edition
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 64-bit Edition
Windows Server Core 2008 Enterprise 64-bit Edition
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition
Windows Server Core 2008 Datacenter Edition
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter 64-bit Edition
Windows Server Core 2008 Datacenter 64-bit Edition
Windows Web Server 2008 Standard Edition
Windows Web Server 2008 64-bit Edition
Windows Storage Server 2008 Standard Edition
Windows Storage Server 2008 64-bit Edition
Windows High Performance Computing Server 2008
Windows Small Business Server 2008
Windows Essential Business Server 2008
Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based Systems
Looking at the above list, it's pretty clear that the MS-DOS
numbering scheme was designed by engineers / developers, and
the Vista naming scheme was designed by marketing.
So, what scheme is best for you? It depends on your market.
A compiler users expects a traditional Major.Minor.Trivial
numbering scheme. A gamer expects halo 2 to be a different
product than Halo. A car buyer expects a Hummer H1, H2, and
H3 to be different products that look somewhat like each
other.
On the other hand, Java developers are used to things like
Java Platform, Standard Edition 5.0 Update 2
Java 2 Platform 5.0
Java 1.5
...all being the same product, but that doesn't make it right.
See http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/relnotes/version-5.0.html
--
Guy Macon
<http://www.guymacon.com/>
Guy Macon
Paul E. Bennett wrote:
>
>willi...@aol.com wrote:
>
>> How is the version number and serial number typically coordinated on
>> commercial software products? Do you restart the serial number from 1
>> when the major or minor version number changes, or does it keep going,
>> i.e. version 1 serial 1 - 5, version 2 serial 6 - xx etc?
>>
>> Thank you in advance ...
>
>The version numbering scheme (for which I haven't found a suitably quotable
>reference document or standard) is based in Major.Minor.Trivial impacts on
>the software in question.
>
>The Trivial is at the level of correcting spelling mistakes. No change to
>functionality or interfaces at all.
>
>The Minor is a small improvement that maintains the overall structure of the
>software that will have minimal impact on other connecting modules.
>
>The Major is anything more than the Minor level of change including
>restructuring.
>
>Serial numbers are a unique number for each copy of the software. This can
>sometimes be linked to licence codes.
The above system has been fine-tuned through long experience so as
James White
companies selling product X in 1.0, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 2.2.1, etc. will continue
their serial numbers for X without regard to version, however, Microsoft
with millions of units in sales probably does not--they don't even use
"numbers" for compactness reasons. Generally, again, most firms with
significant sales will embed some product and version info within the serial
number, though it may be coded for compactness and only recognizable with
the table that decodes it. E.g., who would know BK meant 2.11 (though that
one's an easy guess they don't have to be). Companies very likely will also
keep a table that tells them what the "unique" part of the serial number
range is for specific releases---even slipstreamed releases with no visible
change in the full version number. A lot of software is available with no
serial number at all most likely because the record burden exceeds the value
by many times over.
So have fun and make your serial numbers, if any, useful to you. (And if
your software falls under any laws for tracking make sure your scheme will
comply. Though I don't know of any such requirements for software, food
tracking must meet legal mandates though each unit might lack a unique
number they can generally tell exactly what batch any unit was in and from
that, via records, know where it's components came from, etc.).
--
James E. White
<willi...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:2f4748bc-89f3-4519...@c23g2000hsa.googlegroups.com...
Guy Macon
James White wrote:
>Generally, again, most firms with significant sales will embed
>some product and version info within the serial number
Many (but not all) of the well-known criticisms of smart part
numbers (also known as intelligent part numbers and significant
part numbers) and many of the arguments for dumb part numbers
apply to the concept of smart / intelligent / significant serial
numbers as well:
Intelligent Part Numbering
http://www.designchainassociates.com/wp/pn.html
http://www.bpic.co.uk/faq/part_nos.htm
My preference is to use a dumb number that starts at 1, a dash,
then the dumb part number (see arguments above) as the serial
number. Just using a dumb number that starts at 1 means that
two different products might have the same serial number.
Most other schemes don't allow one to refer to "all serial
numbers below X" without ambiguity.
--
misc.business.product-dev: a Usenet newsgroup
about the Business of Product Development.
Brad Eckert
You might consider including a checkdigit in the serial number,
similar to those in the account and routing numbers on a bank check.
That way, if the customer calls in with a wrong number or the tech
support person types a wrong digit you can catch it.
Brad
willi...@aol.com
On Feb 23, 8:25 pm, Brad Eckert <nospaa...@tinyboot.com> wrote:
>
> You might consider including a checkdigit in the serial number,
> similar to those in the account and routing numbers on a bank check.
> That way, if the customer calls in with a wrong number or the tech
> support person types a wrong digit you can catch it.
That sounds like a good idea. I imagine it is something like a parity bit???
"Guy Macon <http://www.guymacon.com/"@-.-
That's the basic idea. There are various algorithms with
various advantages and disadvantages. Here are a few:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Check_digit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_redundancy_check
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luhn_algorithm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verhoeff_algorithm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher's_checksum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hash_functions