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This feels like the "product version" has taken over again.

I promote semver internally primarily for wiring together build automation. But I also try to make it clear that there can be a _completely different_ "product version" that can mean whatever the hell we want it to be. Calendar versions are great product versions.

Many people, frequently product managers, are very uncomfortable with this distinction.

So many places use the product version as "the version", which then becomes the main justification for monolithic version control, even for distributed applications or multiple product lines. So now, you re-build and/or re-deploy everything, even things that had no changes, purely to stay in sync with "the version".

There are usually good _technical_ reasons for monolithic version control, but doing it just to slap a product version on everything usually ends up with an alarming amount of waste.



This!

Semver uses the version number to convey useful information. Getting rid of semver just eliminates that information.

If you want to bump versions for marketting, that's perfectly valid. Just use a separate product version.

My SVN commit numbers and git hashes also fail to convey useful marketting information, but that's no reason to get rid of them!


This. The tension in the OA sounds like people a conflating sales marketing based product number and the engineering based version.

Keep those separate or have constant missunderstandings, arguments, and frustration. Sadly, I talk from experience.


I wish this was built into semver as the first field.




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