[Development] Do we need version tags in released src packages?

[Edward Welbourne]

El divendres, 13 d’agost de 2021, a les 9:17:16 (CEST), Jani Heikkinen va escriure:
>>>> We are planning to simplify our packaging and releasing scripts and
>>>> one thing which would simplify our scripts is removal of version tag
>>>> parsing for src (and example) packages. So the question is if we can
>>>> remove version tag (-alpha, -beta1 etc) from our src and exmple  packages?

Albert Astals Cid (13 August 2021 09:26) replied:
>>> Does this mean that alpha/beta packages would have exactly the same
>>> filename as the final packages?

Jani Heikkinen (13 August 2021 11:06) replied:
> That was my proposal

I had asked:
>> and, more generally, what would the practical consequences of your
>> proposed change be ?  What would Qt-users (or indeed anyone aside from
>> our packaging team) see changed ?

> Only release packages would change; no changes to files in git
>
> * Standalone src packages in
>   https://download.qt.io/development_releases/qt/6.3/6.3.0-beta1/single/
>   would be qt-everywhere-src-6.3.0.zip instead of
>   qt-everywhere-src-6.3.0-beta1.zip. And main folder in the archive
>   wouldn't contain 'beta1' either
>
> * Submodule specific src packages in
>   https://download.qt.io/development_releases/qt/6.3/6.3.0-beta1/submodules/
>   would be qt<submodule>-everywhere-src-6.3.0.zip instead of
>   qt<submodule>-everywhere-src-6.3.0-beta1.zip. And main folder in the
>   archive wouldn't contain 'beta1' either
>
> There is no effect to installation done by online installer; in the
> installation there isn't version tag shown at all currently either.

So only leaf file-names change, the directories they're found in retain
their release-process tags.  The only problem I can see is that someone
who downloads the leaf file to a local place and comes back a few weeks
later to look at it won't know where in the release process it came out,
so might not know which beta to report a bug against, or might need to
download the same file a second time just because they can't remember
which release-tag they already had.  Not deal-breakers, I guess.

They might also mistakenly think what they've got is a final release, if
only because they're used to all but that having a release tag in them,
which might be a more serious issue.

	Eddy.