Re: GCC multi-version development layout

On Monday, April 20th, 2026 at 7:33 PM, Jonathan Wakely via Gcc-help <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Mon, 20 Apr 2026 at 17:58, Andrew C Aitchison via Gcc-help
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 20 Apr 2026, Jonathan Wakely via Gcc-help wrote:
> >
> > >                         The point of the release timeline is to see
> > > when various important events happened in the history of GCC. I want
> > > to know the date on which GCC 9.3.0 was released, so I can look at the
> > > timeline. If it only shows the active branches, that timeline would be
> > > completely useless for most of the times I consult it.
> >
> > But 9.3.0 is not mentioned in
> >     https://gcc.gnu.org/develop.html#timeline
> > - the closest is "GCC 9.3 release (2020-03-12)".
> >
> > The distinction between 9.3 and 9.3.0 is meaningless to you,
> > but that is what has caused Heime's confusion.
> >
> > You are saying that X.Y is a release and that X.Y.Z is something else,
> 
> I never said "X.Y.Z is something else", I don't know where you got
> that from. The page is clear that X.Y.0 is a release. Can nobody read
> today?
> 
> > but then use X.Y.0 to refer to a release.
> 
> As documented.
> 
> >
> > Even though I cannot remember when Z != 0 last appeared,
> 
> It's on the page we're talking about! Can nobody read today?
> 
> > gcc --version reports a string of the form X.Y.Z
> > so it seems to me that X.Y.Z *does* need to be described,
> > and the .0 should be included in the timeline.
> 
> The .0 is redundant because every X.Y release on that timeline is X.Y.0

I have no problem understanding the releases.  But I care about the 
development process and the related scheme of how branches are made 
and named, including snapshots.