Re: Problems with gnits standard and git-version-gen

[Karl Berry]

    1.00rc0

Personally, when I see a version number like that, I'm never sure what
it means.  Probably the first rc leading up to 1.00, but maybe it is an
rc for 1.01 after 1.00.  And suffixes sort badly in long lists (see,
e.g., http://ftp.isc.org/isc/bind9/).  Anyway.  Not trying to change
your ways, but since you raised the subject, tossing in my gratuitious
opinion, sorry.

    gnits standard 

gnits is not a standard of any kind.  It was a small group of GNU
friends who, some 20+ years ago, wanted to expand on the GNU coding
standards (which were not being actively maintained at the time, among
other reasons).  One of us was Tom Tromey, writing automake at the time.
So he included "support" in automake for the extra gnits checks we were
thinking about.  That is all.  If you don't like it, don't use it.  No
harm will befall you.

    doesn't allow non-numeric suffixes...

Because it's not what rms recommended.  That simple.  As you may
remember, we used to use 1.7a, 1.7b, ..., leading to up a 1.8 release.
Someone complained about it, can't remember who, maybe Debian, but
anyway, rms devised the .90, .91, ... method to accommodate.  And since
it's just a version number, many maintainers were happy to just go along
with the new program.

k