i bumped into this by chance while looking at some updated dependencies of recent commits on the #golang #badger database:

https://github.com/google/flatbuffers/wiki/Versioning

i don't like flatbuffers particularly, because they invented yet another pointless language just for a feature that lets you unpack binary encoded data one field at a time instead of all at once, i wrote a simple interface based codec for Go that did that inspired by this, but regardless, i like it that they have bucked the trend and are using a version scheme that fits them

they aren't the first to use years as versions, Microsoft did this back in the late 90s, probably for similar reasons, and Ubuntu rolled out of the gate with this philosophy and versions of ubuntu have always been marked by time not by some nonsensical number trying to represent a myriad of features somehow even though it literally can't do that