How does the new Unity 2017 naming convention work?

Question

Unity has moved from the release tags like 5.6.3 etc... to 2017.2

What does each section of the new naming convention mean, where it's not obviously a year/release num.

For Example

• 2017.2.b
• 2017.2.0f2-MRTP
• 2017.2.1f1
• 2017.1.2p4

Answer 1

It's a largely used convention.

Softwares like PyCharm and now Unity 3D use it for versioning following the scheme: [year].[major].[minor]. Some software and even OS (Ubuntu, for example) use a different kind of conventional, much similar to the new Unity convention: [year].[month] so you get Ubuntu 11.10 which means it was launched in October 2011.

I believe that is called Calendar Versioning. (I might be wrong). If you'd like, you can read more about it here: Calendar Versioning - https://calver.org/#scheme.

Like MaddoxSt previous said:

a stands for alpha
b stands for beta
rc stands for release candidate
f stands for final
p stands for patch

Answer 2

There are specifics to what they mean. For example

• a = alpha
• b = beta
• f = final release
• p = patch

So they are being named that way :)