This is called Unix shared library version numbering convention. * http://apr.apache.org/versioning.html http://apr.apache.org/versioning.html * http://www.fre

This is called Unix shared library version numbering convention. * http://apr.apache.org/versioning.html http://apr.apache.org/versioning.html * http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/developers-handbook/policies-shlib.html http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/developers-handbook/poli... * http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Program-Library-HOWTO/shared-libraries.html http://tldp.org/HOWTO/Program-Library-HOWTO/shared-libraries... * http://home.bolink.org/ebooks/unix3/mac/ch05_04.htm http://home.bolink.org/ebooks/unix3/mac/ch05_04.htm If you can make it popular in Ruby world you can call it whatever you please :-) You should be able to find 10 (and probably 20) year old rants about how technology X does not do version numbering right, and should use Unix shared library standard.