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\title{ Version numbers for MediaWiki extensions }

\author{ Sam Wilson }

\date{ 2023 January 16 (Monday), 2:43AM }

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MediaWiki extensions have two basic options\footnote{\url{https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Compatibility#MediaWiki\_extensions}} for releasing: one (called \texttt{rel}) is to have a separate branch for each major[\textasciicircum1] version of core; the other (called \texttt{master}) is to only have one branch and to make it compatible with as many versions of core that the maintainer wants (hopefully all current versions\footnote{\url{https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Version\_lifecycle}}). Extensions also have a version number of their own, and for years it's confused me. I think that it doesn't make sense to have a version number with a \texttt{rel} compatibility policy. It \emph{does} make sense for \texttt{master} (and in that case, the automatically-created \texttt{REL1_*} branches should be deleted).

[\textasciicircum1]: note that MediaWiki doesn't use Semantic Versioning\footnote{\url{https://semver.org}}, so it's not the first number; that's always \texttt{1}.

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