semver is interesting because it's part of the GitHub Re-Architect Software Development Initiative. When GitHub was new, the founders dumped dozens of utilitie

semver is interesting because it's part of the GitHub Re-Architect Software Development Initiative. When GitHub was new, the founders dumped dozens of utilities and methodologies for public-facing software development on the world (smver, README-first development, mustache (was that them?), an RPC system inspired by Erlang, and dozens more) and a lot of people glommed on to many of those as The Holy Way, but everything is still just made up. (This is where the "Science" part of Computer Science falls short.) Much like how Heroku proffers 12-factor apps because it fits their own narrative nicely, and it's also useful outside of Heroku, but just because one way of doing something exists doesn't mean it's necessarily the only or best way. And, as far as version numbers go, with C libraries we have the concept of a "library version" and a "ABI version" — you increase the library version with any changes, but only the ABI version with breaking changes. It confuses some people to have one library with two version numbers, but it kinda makes sense too. It directly tells you the least common denominator of features this library can provide regardless of bug fixes or new features added later.