[Nix-dev] RFC: NixOS version string format

[Bjørn Forsman]

Hi Eelco,

What do you think about a (small) version number format change?

Now that I've switched to the NixOS 14.04 release I see nixos-version
printing "14.04.42698.54a7d1d (Baboon)". It is impossible to tell if
that is close to release date or hundreds of commits later...

Something more along the lines of "git describe" would be more
descriptive and user friendly (IMHO). With a proper (annotated) tag
for release 14.04 and a system where HEAD has three additional commits
after the tag, a "git describe"-like version number could look like
"14.04-3-g54a7d1d (Baboon)".

Best regards,
Bjørn Forsman