I remember that's what Andrew @ Parallels said. This is not to criticize him in anyway. However unfortunately I think that version 2.5 has more challenges then Parallels thought. What, Parallels started version 2.5 in early November I think. Now it's almost February and it's still in beta form. BTW, has anyone seen any of the Parallels team posting in here lately? Parallels keep up the good work and I really hope that you conquer the challenges of version 2.5 real soon.
Me too! He should have said no charge instead of minor then. It gave me the wrong idea if indeed you're right. Oh well, whatever.
thats not quite true.. Beta means that some of the features are there, some more are to come. 2.5 is in Release Candidate form, which means that as a product, the feature set is now complete. The only thing stopping full release is QA testing and the fixing of the show stopping bugs. 2.5 has been in Release Candidate for almost a month. Beta to RC in 8 weeks.. thats kinda quick in terms of software development.
Semantic confusion The word "minor" used here has a different meaning than the vernacular connotation of "insignificant" or "trivial". In software development, there is a convention to the numbering of versions. This convention consists of a major number, followed by a minor number, followed by a maintenance number (optional). The number "0" also has special meaning depending on it's location. So the following version number: 1.5.2, implies that the application is on it's first major version, 5th minor revision (although 5 is also oftentimes used as a minor number to indicate an incremental release midway between two regularly scheduled releases), and at it's 2nd maintenance release. Most software manufacturers have a policy of offering free upgrades to "minor" and "maintenance" releases, while charging for "major" ones. Of course not everyone uses this, there are always exceptions, however the vast majority of software development follows this general rule.
One of the most obvious exceptions to this rule is Apple, with their apparent labeling of major releases as point releases such as 10.4 and the upcoming 10.5
In case of Apple, it's just that they want to keep the 'OS X' moniker, and hence keep the version number as 10.x. Therefore the 'x' in this versioniing scheme is actually major. Otherwise we'd be at Mac OS 14 right now. Errr... 14.8.
These aren't decimal numbers. The next minor update after 10.9.9 would be 10.9.10. The next major update after 10.9 is 10.10. (Assuming, of course, that Apple still wants to call it OS X then. Based on their current release schedule, we're talking sometime around 2015.)
