Linus Torvalds, creator and curator of the Linux kernel, has a quandary on his hands: should he stick to Linux's long-time tradition of massive, multple-decimal-point version numbers, or should he abandon them in favor of shorter, more easily distinguishable major versions?

The problem at hand is the imminent arrival of Linux 3.20. Unlike most major pieces of software, a new version of the Linux kernel is released every 10 weeks or so. In some cases, developers simply bump the major version number every time there's a big release, which is why we're now up to Chrome 40 and Firefox 35. The Linux kernel, however, has historically opted for a "conventional" scheme, which resulted in some incredibly long-winded version numbers such as 2.6.39.4.

Back in 2011, with the release of Linux 3.0, Torvalds said those "2.6.<bignum>" days were over—and now here we are, a few weeks away from the release of Linux 3.20, and it seems we're on the cusp of the Linux kernel assuming a much simpler version scheme. "I'm once more close to running out of fingers and toes," muses Torvalds, before going on to suggest that it might be time to skip 3.20 and jump straight to 4.0. In a poll attached to Torvalds' Google+ post, which had more than 24,000 votes at the time of publishing, 54% were in favor of numbering the next version of the kernel Linux 4.0.

The question is why Linux (or indeed any software package) should have major and minor version numbers at all. There are no major new features in Linux 3.20 that really warrant a "jump" to 4.0—it's a completely arbitrary distinction based on Torvalds (and perhaps other members of the community) not being overly fond of large version numbers. If the version number is completely arbitrary, though, why shouldn't Linux just use the same numbering scheme as Firefox or Chrome, with the version number being incremented with every 10-week release cycle?

Of course, the other option, if Linus wanted to be truly trendy, is to just call the next version Linux 10—and then perhaps thereafter give each new version the name of a large animal or an interesting location from Torvalds' home country of Finland.