I'd like to suggest that we call the next release 5.0 alpha and follow it with either 5.0 or 5.0 beta (if need be) on the lines of the 4x releases.
As for the history behind calling it that, here's a post about the 4.0 alpha release that should clarify things I'm thinking about. http://lucidworks.com/blog/4-0-alpha-whats-in-a-name/ Again, this would be a stable, production release. Like all other public releases but would give us the freedom to change APIs that need to be changed. Thoughts? -- Anshum Gupta http://about.me/anshumgupta
