I don't know if there's a good source for where this convention started but it's not that uncommon; offhand, both npm[1] and Cargo[2] support that format. [1]:

I don't know if there's a good source for where this convention started but it's not that uncommon; offhand, both npm[1] and Cargo[2] support that format. [1]: https://docs.npmjs.com/about-semantic-versioning#using-semantic-versioning-to-specify-update-types-your-package-can-accept https://docs.npmjs.com/about-semantic-versioning#using-seman... [2]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/specifying-dependencies.html#caret-requirements https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/specifying-depende...