[tbb-dev] Tor Browser version strategy

[Mark Smith]

On 3/24/14, 8:59 AM, Lunar wrote:
> Mark Smith:
>> Radical proposal of the day:  Can we use the Firefox major version number in
>> the Tor Browser version?  This would mean that TBB versions would be 24.0,
>> 24.1, 24.1.1, etc.
>
> How would you support what is currently out there: Tor Browser 3.5.3 as
> the stable branch and Tor Browser 3.6-beta-1 as the beta branch? Both
> are based on 24.4.0esr.

This is a good question.

We do not need to exactly match the Firefox version numbers; I think 
just using the major revision number in our TBB version numbers would be 
sufficient for us to avoid the need to patch Firefox's updater code. 
But we would need to come up with a way to partition the version number 
space, e.g.,

Stable: 24.0, 24.0.1, 24.0.2, ...
Beta:   24.1b1, 24.1b2, 24.1b3, ...

The problem with this is that it will be confusing to have a 24.1b1 Tor 
Browser that is based on Firefox 24.4.0esr.  The only thing people could 
assume is that the first portion of the Tor Browser number matches the 
first portion of the Firefox version.  But they might tend to assume 
more of a relationship since our version numbers would so closely 
resemble Firefox's.

I am not sure how many people look closely at version numbers though. 
Most people just care that a higher version number implies newer software.

-- 
Mark Smith
Pearl Crescent
http://pearlcrescent.com/