Hi George, All,

Thanks for the thoughts. Can I assume that you suggest to stay with option 1?

The semantic versioning was proposed several times and sounds reasonable because it gives a meaning to each version component so downstream projects could rely on it.

Yes, a version of a product represents some quality status but in my view that depends on convention. For downstream projects reference, TF-M issues releases periodically so a version represents a stable point in time and occasionally brings new features / fixes.

Cheers,

Anton

From: TF-M <tf-m-bounces@lists.trustedfirmware.org> On Behalf Of Gyorgy Szing via TF-M
Sent: 16 November 2020 08:17
To: tf-m@lists.trustedfirmware.org
Cc: nd <nd@arm.com>
Subject: Re: [TF-M] Semantic versioning

Hi,

I miss something here. What is being discussed, what is the purpose of changing version numbering?

Is more granularity needed and each or some lesser quality levels should be assigned a version number too? Currently a new version number is assigned if a new SW set reaches “Release” quality level. (Whatever that might be.)
Is there need for expressing backwards compatibility better?
Is the aim to enhance existing version numbers just by making them following a well-defined standard?

I have the feeling different people are talking about different sub-topics.

I think the most important purpose or having release numbers is to express quality. It could help on version numbers if quality would be defined cleaner.

/George

From: TF-M <tf-m-bounces@lists.trustedfirmware.org> On Behalf Of Kevin Peng via TF-M
Sent: 16 November 2020 09:06
To: David Hu <David.Hu@arm.com>; David Wang <David.Wang@arm.com>; Anton Komlev <Anton.Komlev@arm.com>; tf-m@lists.trustedfirmware.org
Cc: nd <nd@arm.com>
Subject: Re: [TF-M] Semantic versioning

I would vote for Option 3, and “.2” - Backport the fixing patches to the existing v1.x.0 tag. – This provides the flexibility to have a released version with critical fixes only.

If TF-M users want all the changes between the release and the fix they can take the master branch as well.

Best Regards,

Kevin

From: TF-M <tf-m-bounces@lists.trustedfirmware.org> On Behalf Of David Hu via TF-M
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2020 3:45 PM
To: David Wang <David.Wang@arm.com>; tf-m@lists.trustedfirmware.org; Anton Komlev <Anton.Komlev@arm.com>
Cc: nd <nd@arm.com>
Subject: Re: [TF-M] Semantic versioning

Hi Anton,

Option 3 seems more reasonable to me.

Hi David,

I think we can leave tag v1.x.0 as it is and create a new tag v1.x.1 for this critical fix on master branch. It can be more easier to distinguish between tags.

Best regards,

Hu Ziji

From: TF-M <tf-m-bounces@lists.trustedfirmware.org> On Behalf Of David Wang via TF-M
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2020 2:53 PM
To: tf-m@lists.trustedfirmware.org
Cc: nd <nd@arm.com>
Subject: Re: [TF-M] Semantic versioning

Hi Anton,

Option 3 is a good.

Just to clarify, for example, if v1.x.0 released, and we got a critical fix 2 months later. Then in your proposal, we:

Tag the current master which includes the fixing patch (and may also include some other merged/ongoing features after last release) as v1.x.1, or
Backport the fixing patches to the existing v1.x.0 tag (keep it in a new branch) and tag the tip of the v1.x release branch as v1.x.1

Thanks.

Regards,

David Wang

From: TF-M <tf-m-bounces@lists.trustedfirmware.org> On Behalf Of Kevin Townsend via TF-M
Sent: Saturday, November 14, 2020 3:45 AM
To: Anton Komlev <Anton.Komlev@arm.com>
Cc: nd <nd@arm.com>; tf-m@lists.trustedfirmware.org
Subject: Re: [TF-M] Semantic versioning

Hi Anton,

Option 3 seems the most sensible to me for a project like TF-M at this stage.

Best regards,

Kevin

On Fri, 13 Nov 2020 at 20:19, Anton Komlev via TF-M <tf-m@lists.trustedfirmware.org> wrote:

Hi,

I would like to continue the discussion on TF-M semantic versioning started on the last tech forum.

Currently TF-M uses a loosely defined versioning schema with major and minor versions, following TF-A.

There are several calls to switch TF-M to semantic versioning.

Here is the reminder of the meaning: (https://semver.org/) v1.2.3 :

MAJOR version when you make incompatible API changes,
MINOR version when you add functionality in a backwards compatible manner, and
PATCH version when you make backwards compatible bug fixes.

This is a good way to go for a mature project but TF-M will overkill from everyday re-versioning because of new patches. It was discussed on the forum and several options were proposed:

Do nothing, reasonably bumping up versions on release time only.
Use semantic versioning ignoring changes in PATCH by keeping it 0. So upcoming version could be: v1.2.0, next v1.3.0 and nothing in between.
Use option 2 but change PATCH when critical code change delivered within release cadence like a security vulnerability fix to let down-stream project relay on a fixed version.
Other ideas?

Personally I tend to follow option 3 but looking for the community input.

Thanks,

Anton.

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