About OE Version Number

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Shiro

BH-C
It seems that at the moment there is alot of confusion about OE versions.

First of all you need to know what OE is.
OE means Linux Open Embedded.
OpenEmbedded is a software framework to create Linux distributions aimed for, but not restricted to, embedded devices.

So OE is a Linux distribution and all the enigma2 boxs use this type of Linux.
Enigma2 is an application running on Linux but is external to OE.
OE is only the Linux base system and is used not only in our boxs but in many other devices.

Now that we know what OE is, we have to try to understand the version currently used, because there is a so much confusion about 1.6 - 2.0 - 3.0 and so on.
The reason for the confusion is THAT THE OFFICIAL LINUX OE, DOES NOT A RELEASE NUMBER.
You can check for yourself on the Openembedded official site or Wikipedia and you will find that the current structure of OE is "dynamic" and the beauty of it is that, it is automatically updated via Git.

So why do we have so many discussions about 1.6, 2.0 or 3.0 versions ?
The reason is hystorical.

The first company to develop an Openembedded for a Linux stb was DMM.
DMM's OE is called Opendreambox.
DMM started to assign their OE progressive release numbers, 1.5 - 1.6 and now 2.0 (based on denzil release of Open Embedded).
Because many of the develpers that have created their own OE distribution was based on "DMM OE" they have to follow the same release number sytem started by DMM.
But the release number is arbitrary and not derived from an official OE release.

So for many years other distributions, such as OpenPli or Vu+ have assigned to their distribution the same OE version numbers: first 1.5 and then later 1.6.

So these days the versions numbers are no longer relevant because the current OE version is dynamic and it is also auto-updated. So the only logical way forward would be using a date instead of a version number as we can see the version number alone no-longer makes sense.

In other words after the "so called 1.6" OE version and starting with the current OE versions (DMM named 2.0) the version number is completely arbitrary and you can see that developers have started to call there distributions OE 3.0 or 4.0 etc etc. This has absolutely nothing to do with the state of the OE used, as it is always updated for all "versions" to the latest available.

For this reason it would be better for everyone (developers) to continue to use one logical reference (like for example DMM version number 2.0) to prevent confusion and all the OE updated distributions should either be called 2.0 or have the version number removed completely.

Hopefully that has helped some members, and made things clearer. The Bh team will continue to follow the DMM numbering system, so we can tell that at the present we have:
Black Hole image: OE 1.6
Black Pole image: OE 2.0

But soon the Black Hole series will jump up !!
 
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