It's not incompatible with semver though, it's just incompatible with Go's "semver is folders". Go's "semver" is full of weird corners. E.g. if you tag v1.2.3

It's not incompatible with semver though, it's just incompatible with Go's "semver is folders". Go's "semver" is full of weird corners. E.g. if you tag v1.2.3 and then someone does a `go get ...@master`, they get "version" `v1.2.4-timestamp-gitsha`. `v1.2.4` doesn't exist anywhere, Go just makes it up: https://golang.org/ref/mod#pseudo-versions https://golang.org/ref/mod#pseudo-versions . It works for their system with minimal changes, and is thus a clever hack, but it's definitely weird.