On Sunday 10 June 2012, Nicolás Alvarez wrote:
> Why not start now and make the next kdelibs 4.8.5? Releasing a kdelibs
> 4.9 will just add to the confusion of how kdelibs development is
> working.

Because having a kdelibs version different from (and especially lower than) the 
KDE SC version messes up our packaging pretty badly.

> Even if we call it 4.9.0, it doesn't need a beta/RC. That causes
> problems because we are releasing multiple versions which *aren't in
> increasing order* and have overlapping release schedules (4.8.80 and
> 4.8.4 were very close to each other) from the same branch...

See above.

In addition, it would also likely show up in things like
kde4-config --kde-version and thus confuse users.

Your "solution" was already proposed (in fact it was the original plan of the 
kdelibs developers) and rejected for very good reasons.

        Kevin Kofler