GNU EMACS VERSIONING -*- org -*- Ref: https://lists.gnu.org/r/emacs-devel/2014-09/msg00872.html Emacs version numbers have the form major.minor[.devel].build "build" increments each time Emacs is built in the same location (without cleaning) and isn't really part of the version. Bugfix releases increase "minor" by 1. Non-bugfix releases increase "major" by 1, and reset "minor" to 1. (The division between bugfix and non-bugfix has not always been clear historically.) Unreleased (development) versions have an extra "devel" component. This is a fairly meaningless number that may be unchanged for a long time. It is normally 50. After we cut the release branch, we’ll make pretest and release candidate (RC) releases. For pretest releases, the "devel" component changes to 90, 91, ... When the first RC release is made, this component is removed. Normally, there is one RC release, unless an unexpected last-minute problem occurs. The development version for a new major release has "minor" = 0. The development version for a new minor release has "minor" = that of the previous release.