Versioning

Project fork

Slicer-<MAJOR_VERSION>.<MINOR_VERSION>.<PATCH_VERSION>[-rc{1|2|3...}][-<TWEAK_VERSION>][-<DATE>][-svn<REV>][-dirty]-<ARCH>-<PLATFORM>

There are 2 types of builds, releases and developments:

Release: Special builds made on a given revision (e.g. r19033: "ENH: Slicer 4.0.1"); Don't contain date or revision number.; The optional suffix -rc{1|2|3|...} identifies the release candidates leading to a final release.; Eventually, a tweak number can be added (e.g. 4.0.1-1)
Development: Nightly or experimental builds; Contains suffixes after the major.minor.patch version; The suffix svn<REV> allows to identify the revision associated with the current package.; The -dirty prefix indicates if the package has been generated from a locally modified source tree.

Include revision number in package name

File name	date	build type	note
Slicer-4.0.0-linux-amd64	2011-11-24	release	release of Slicer 4.0.0
Slicer-4.0.0-2011-12-10-svn100-linux-amd64	2011-11-25	development	nightly build after 4.0.0
Slicer-4.0.1-rc1-linux-amd64	2012-01-04	release	release candidate 1 of Slicer 4.0.1
Slicer-4.0.1-rc1-2012-01-05-svn150-linux-amd64	2012-01-05	development	nightly build after the release candidate
Slicer-4.0.1-rc2-linux-amd64	2012-01-11	release	release candidate 2 of Slicer 4.0.1
Slicer-4.0.1-rc2-2012-01-12-svn200-linux-amd64	2012-01-12	development	nightly build after the release candidate
Slicer-4.0.1-linux-amd64	2012-01-14	release	release of Slicer 4.0.1
Slicer-4.0.1-2012-01-20-svn236-linux-amd64	2012-01-20	development	nightly build after 4.0.1
Slicer-4.0.1-1-linux-amd64	2012-01-28	release	tweak version 1 of Slicer 4.0.1
Slicer-4.0.2-linux.amd64	2012-06-05	release	release of Slicer 4.0.2

Increment minor version after each release, remove the concept of release candidate and tweak version.

With the transition to git workflow where branching is easier, after each release, the minor version in the trunk would be increased by one.

Patch release would be done using the maintenance branch associated with any given release.

File name	date	build type	branch	note
Slicer-4.5.0-1-linux-amd64	2015-12-11	release	4.5	tweak version 1 of Slicer 4.5.0
Slicer-4.6.0-2016-01-30-svn24950-linux-amd64	2016-01-30	development	master	nightly build after 4.5.0
...	...	...	...	...
Slicer-4.6.0-2016-02-06-svn25174-linux-amd64	2016-02-06	development	master	nightly build after 4.5.0
Slicer-4.5.1-2016-02-06-svn25175-linux-amd64	2016-02-06	development	4.5	manual build after 4.5.0-1
Slicer-4.5.1-linux-amd64	2015-02-07	release	4.5	patch version 1 of Slicer 4.5.0
...	...	...	...	...
Slicer-4.6.0-2016-03-05-svn25174-linux-amd64	2016-02-05	development	master	nightly build after 4.5.0
Slicer-4.6.0-linux-amd64	2016-03-06	release	master	release of 4.6.0 : next commit on master would increment minor version to start new dev cycle creation of maintenance branch 4.6
...	...	...	...	...
Slicer-4.6.0-2016-03-07-svn25180-linux-amd64	2016-03-07	development	master	nightly build after 4.6.0

Development build will end with an "odd" number
- For example: 4.7, 4.9, 5.1, 5.3
- Package name include the date: Slicer-X.Y.Z[-YYYY-MM-DD].<ext>

Stable release will end with an "even" number
- For example: 4.8, 5.0, 5.2
- Package name do not include the date: Slicer-X.Y.Z.<ext>

Install folder:
- windows: Slicer X.Y.Z-YYYY-MM-DD (remains the same)
- macOS: Slicer.app -> Slicer-X.Y.Z-YYYY-MM-DD.app (add revision and date)
- Linux: Slicer-X.Y.Z[-YYYY-MM-DD]-<arch> (remains the same)

Slicer is "released" daily (aka nightly build) and mixing these daily releases with stable releases under the same major.minor revision would be confusing for the users. We cannot expect users to learn different naming patterns to determine what kind of release (development/stable) they are installing and learning a complex logic of determining which version is more recent (e.g., which one is more recent 4.7.1-1 or 4.7.0-2017-08-29).
With this new scheme in place, we can unambiguously specify both stable/development branch and a specific version. This allows using simple major.minor tags in Mantis, documentation, forums, etc.
It will be possible to distinguish between the pre- and the post- release. When we mention 4.8, it clearly relates to a version that contain all changes of 4.7.
Semantic versioning not applicable to a complex application, maintaining backward compatibility is done as a best effort and often "minor" breaking changes are included after communicating with users or updating the user code.