How is decided, if a software version is called 1.1 / 1.0.1 / 1.0.0.1 / 1.0.0.0.1 etc.?
In: 1
It really depends on the individual product and the company that makes it.
Usually, updating a version number is a technical decision of the development team.
Many development teams (especially in the open source community) use what’s called [semantic versioning](https://semver.org/), where the version number is A.B.C. A rolls over only for major changes that probably break related programs, B rolls over whenever new stuff is added but existing related programs should still work, and C rolls over for bug fixes and tiny improvements.
Sometimes, the version number can get less technical and more political. This especially applies to rolling over to version 1.0 (indicating a product is out of testing and ready to just be used), or going to version 2.0 (indicating the first major change ever since the product existed in a usable form as version 1.0). Deciding to say “We’re releasing OurProduct 2.0” is a big move that, especially in companies that are heavily dependent on a single product, involves the marketing department, or even the CEO.
Semantic versioning is the closest thing we have to a standard for version numbers. It’s undeniably true that a lot of products use it.
However, it’s also undeniably true that a lot of products don’t use semantic versioning.
You can probably find software versions that use two / three / four numbers, or add zeros to make it clear that 1.10 is nine versions later than 1.01, or include a letter like 1.8b, or involve the date of release instead, or don’t use numbers at all.
Microsoft Windows has infamously switched between many different version naming systems over the years. (Remember, this often happens because the marketing department takes over decision making for version numbering when a company is highly dependent on a single product, which definitely describes Microsoft historically but maybe not currently.) The versions of Windows are:
– 1.0
– 2.0, 2.1
– 3.0, 3.1, 3.11 (suddenly they add a third digit but no decimal point), NT “New Technology” (okay, now we use two-letter codenames)
– 95, 98 (now we’re switching to a year), 98SE “Second Edition” (a year with an extra two-letter “edition” abbreviation), ME “Millenium Edition” (now a 2-letter edition abbreviation with no year)
– 2000 (okay we have to use a 4-digit year now because we’re in a new century, but it’s not the same as Millenium Edition), XP “eXPerience” (now back to abbreviations but they’re just two random letters from a word and not a proper acronym)
– Vista (ditch the two-letter thing and just use the spelled-out codename instead)
– 7 (switch back to numbers, but just use a single version number)
– 8
– 10 (skip 9 because some programs think they’re running in Windows 95 / 98 if the version starts with 9)
– 11
As to why things are grouped into bullet points like that: The marketing department picked “7” because “Windows 7” sounded nice, and they later tried to [awkwardly justify after the fact](https://web.archive.org/web/20081031151658/http://windowsteamblog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/10/14/why-7.aspx) that there were 6 prior versions. My grouping of earlier versions into bullet points is based on Microsoft’s stated justification for there having been 6 versions of Windows prior to Windows 7.
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