I worked at a place where the version numbers were largely chosen by the CEO for marketing reasons. He'd keep them low for brand new stuff to excite the early a

I worked at a place where the version numbers were largely chosen by the CEO for marketing reasons. He'd keep them low for brand new stuff to excite the early adopters then bump the major version up a 5 or so when he wanted to sell to more conservative types. I was, by chance, at a client once where they were having a big meeting discussing how much testing etc was required to make a "big" upgrade. I had to point out that, in fact, the difference between the 2 versions was a few minor bug fixes largely in code they didn't use. They weren't very happy. When I got back to the office I, somewhat tongue in cheek, suggested we allow the clients to choose their own versioning systems. I still think it would be better than what we had.