Lurker Suggestion: Retro-name RHL to Fedora Core 0.x

[Bryan J. Smith]

Axel Thimm wrote:  
> There was a suggestion (Nov 2003?) to "rename" RHL7.3 etc. to
> FC0.7.3 etc. in order to get the disttag issues straightened out
> (the natural disttag "rh9" is not rpm-less than "fc1").

I figured something as such, but didn't want to ass-u-me anything.
I always wondered why they they just didn't call it Fedora Core 10,
leaving a "hint" that it was related, without the trademark issues.
So makes you wonder if it would have not been better after all with
the disttag issues!

> If I am not wrong fedora.us is using a similar scheme with stripped
> away distids, i.e. they don't use fc0.7.3 but plain 0.7.3 in the
> versioning.

Yeah, I thought I saw something somewhere in the SRPMS
(or am I talking out of my ass about something else?).

> FWIW I would very much welcome a common versioning scheme for RHL
> & FC that could look like
> fc0.7.3 < fc0.8.0 < fc0.9 < fc1  < fc2 < fc2.90 etc
> The confusion will be high, and unless all packaging parties use
> the same semantics users will be lost.

Yeah, that's that problem.  How far do you go?

Do you just use my suggestion, only changing the "legacy" "redhat-
release" package?

Or do we go so far to re-spin the whole, still legacy-supported
0.7.3 and 9 releases with lots of various trademark modifications,
although we leave some of the 7.3/9 references for compatibility?

At 

> The discussion in the past has shown very low to none interest
> by RH, and N^2 disttag suggestions from N 3rd parties, so there
> is low chance of anything happening.

That's sad.  I _am_ understanding of what Red Hat decided to do,
and their "hands are tied" for trademark reasons which is why
most of the confusion exists.  But they _could_ have at least
thought of these things _beforehand_.

Oh well, I guess the best thing we can do is just use the
nomenclature everywhere.  When I reference _any_ release now,
I list it as a "Fedora Core" release, typically with a "Lx.x"
in front of it, and then an optional tag of either "[current],"
"[legacy]" or "[retired]".

E.g.,
  Fedora Core L6.2 [retired]
  Fedora Core L7.2 [retired]
  Fedora Core L7.3 [legacy]
  Fedora Core L8   [retired]
  Fedora Core L9   [legacy]
  Fedora Core 1    [current]
  Fedora Core 2    [current]

I then replace the "L" with "0." in any formal files/versions.

-- Bryan

P.S.  Is Fedora Core 1 becoming "legacy" anytime soon?  We're
almost to 1 year now.


-- 
     Linux Enthusiasts call me anti-Linux.
   Windows Enthusisats call me anti-Microsoft.
 They both must be correct because I have over a
decade of experience with both in mission critical
environments, resulting in a bigotry dedicated to
 mitigating risk and focusing on technologies ...
           not products or vendors
--------------------------------------------------
Bryan J. Smith, E.I.         b.j.smith at ieee.org