Version-string schemes for the Java SE Platform and the JDK

[Ryan Schmitt]

One common reason for discussions to devolve into bikeshedding is that they
have become unmoored from any particular problem-solving activity, and
discussion participants are much more anxious to express their subjective
aesthetic judgements than to make careful engineering evaluations. You've
laid
out a very detailed explanation of the different considerations involved in
designing a versioning scheme. However, Java already *has* a versioning
scheme,
as codified in JEP 223, and it is not self-evident why a six-month release
train as opposed to a two-year release train would invalidate that scheme.
So I
would like to request clarification: what problem are you trying to solve?
If
we don't know what our problem-solving objective is, then we can't know if a
particular proposal meets that objective or not, and then it doesn't matter
how
much information we sift through, our only basis for conversation will be
bikeshedding.