Sergei, I just wanted to mention product version and how it is encoded in RPM and DEB packages are 2 different things. We have similar problem with Percona Server, adding some unstable features and we plan to either solve it by prefix or different repository. Inventing your own MariaDB 5.2 is very confusing, seriously Are fixes in MySQL 5.1.47 in MariaDB 5.2.0 ? Requirement to go and check the docs all the time is inconvenient. May be some time in the future amount of changes becomes so large the base MySQL version will not be relevant any more but it will take time.
We cannot just make up any numbering scheme we want - it must fit into what distributions and various package managers expect from a version number.
And as far as I understand, the usual expectations are - three numbers as a version, an optional suffix, and a local (distribution specific) revision number.
I'm not sure the sufix is always significant, that is, I don't know how they treat two releases that have exactly the same version number, but different suffixes. In MySQL the suffix (-alpha, -beta) was not significant, and I don't remember if there was a reason for it or not.
Regards, Sergei
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