missed your question when replying yesterday Normis...
This concept has already been put in place by MikroTik with v2.9.x since the early releases of v3, when it was published that v2.9 would receive no further features, only bug fixes from here on out. I am only suggesting that we modify the existing standard so that instead of v2.9 being the major release, v3 is the major release, and the second number be incremented with each package or feature change to the release, as a form of notification that there have been underlying changes or additions to the system that warrent thorough testing.
what is the difference between
3.123 and 3.2.3 ?
the number of revisions won't change anyway, you can call it A.B if you want
The difference is that v3.2.3 tells me that we are running v3, it has had 2 feature additions since it was released and since the last feature release, 3 bug fix releases, where v3.123 only tells me there have been 123 changes since the initial release.
the reason this is important is because without a throughly detailed change log, we never know when a new build is simply a bug fix for the last build, or if it includes some fundamental changes to the drivers or the system, or a new package.
example of how this would work in real life:
x.0.5 - fixed bug - OpenVPN key renegotiation did not work;
x.0.6 - fixed bug - PPTP client did not work with Windows PPTP server;
x.1.0 - added layer7 protocol matching capability in firewall;
x.1.1 - fixed USB UPS detection;
x.2.0 - added support for BGP signalled VPLS;
reading this, if I were currently running version x.0.3 and running BGP, I would feel comfortable upgrading to v x.1.1 without significant testing, but before upgrading to x.2.0 I would perform lots of testing and be prepared for a quick rollback with the knowledge that the BGP components have been modified and may contain new bugs.
Essentially it is a numbering scheme that tells people how much different the new version is then the old. This information works both to promote faster adoption of new versions that contain only bug fixes by allievating the concern of rolling out a less tested update knowing that nothing else has changed, and to encourage thorough lab testing when a new version comes out, knowing there is a good reason to test it (and conversly not testing knowing when it is not as important).