I was wondering: why Blender 2.5? Why not make it Blender 3.0?
From what I am seeing, the all-new Blender “2.5” is truly worthy of a MAJOR release number increment.
That also leaves the door open for any potential interim releases prior to the “big one”. I hope there are not, as I am very eager to see the full-blown new one!
(Forgive me if I’m resurrecting an existing topic. I did a quick search on this in the forum and could not find anything related to this.)
muhahah:) You know why not? because blender has in the last 8 years moved by 0.25 versions forward!!! hehe. Devs obviously like small numbers combined with big new features 
ah ah funny you mention, that’s exactly what I said in my last post : http://www.francois-tarlier.com/blog/?p=443.
This is more than major, it’s a complete rebuild 
It’s an ideal. Although ofcourse since blender has been revised in the small increments, won’t blender 3.0 in the not so far future may be that much spectacular.
Rebuild of the interface maybe, but not what’s underneath, you still going to find it works the same way on the whole. Bmesh maybe but what else is rebuilt? Material system? Nodes? Render engine, GI? Colour Management System? GPU assisted rendering, GPU assisted full preview of particle effects rendered in the viewports, etc etc??? 
Event system has been rebuild, and window manager. Those are pretty big, animation system has been remade, also big. RNA things.
There is no need to jump to 3.0, hopefully it will be done in less than a year so there isn’t time to make 2.5, 2.6, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9 in between. That would just slow down the important development of 2.5 (or 3.0 in that case)
No, everything “underneath” is being rebuilt. The parts being rebuilt may not be as sexy, but have way more impact on what blender will become than anything you mentioned.
I’ll put my vote in for a jump to Blender 3… that’d be cool!!!
Blender’s Not a Number…
Three! Three! Three! Three! Three… =P
Oh damn, I just got it LOL
I have never though about it but you guys actually might be right. Blender 3 sounds cool and it has enough reasons to be call this way. Because if you hink about the the differences beetwen 2.49 adn 2.5 and the difference of version its a bit confusing… 0.01?! It doesnt really ilustrate the improvements at all.
+1 for Blender 3.0
WEll its really simple, Blender 3.0 will be the bugfix release, like 2.49
But we will celebrate it all the same 
3 is just a number just like 2.5 or 2.6, 2.7 are just numbers at this point. They don’t really mean anything. 2.5 makes sense because when it is finally released it will pretty much be a beta with expected imperfections that are usually overlooked in the development process. Give it a version 3 when Bmesh is implemented, GI, UI and workflow perfection, etc. In short, when you could finally say it’s an alternative to any 3d package out there.
This is exactly the sort of thing that would usually indicate a new version.
If not 3.0, then 2.9x for a while until some goal of stability and feature set is reached.
The numbers don’t really mean anything, except that they sort of do. Going up to the next version number would be completely justified by the kind of overhaul that’s going on for the 2.5 version. I think it would make for a good statement to potential users, telling them that this is a whole new Blender that’s worth trying out even if they didn’t like all the past versions.
It’s much more than just about a number…
I think “3.0” will send out a message to the world: “Look, a new Blender!”. Isn’t the GUI one of the big things that the rest of the world has been complaining about? But they will be getting a LOT more!
I think it will cause the animation industry to sit up and take note: “Wow, these guys are serious!”
As an techie myself, we tend to think “Aw, it’s just a number. What’s in a number?”.
Forgive me for using this example, but why then did Microsoft think it was a good idea many years ago (when they still did not have a huge market share) to jump their Office suite version from 2.x (?) to 6.0? Because they knew the industry was comparing all the Office-like software packages out there and thinking to themselves: “This Microsoft Office must be pretty immature compared to the other packages if they only sit on revision 2.x”.
Why, with all these huge changes we could even jump to Blender 10! Then we’re out there with all the big guns!
Or what about Blender 2009? If it gets released around September it could even be Blender 2010!
(Just stretching your imagination and inviting some discussion)
I’m going to go with the more conservative opinion of Blender 3.
ya i agree most user from outside the open source industry when they hear small incremental number increase will think it’s a bug fixing release or a small update
In most cases, 2.xx only means something like “Bugfixed 2.0”, in Cinema 4D, 10.5 means “10 with a few more features”. If it is a real rebuild, make it “3.0”! Because only we (as blender-users yet) know, what big differences are between 2.49 and 2.5. But a new user? I think he would take 2.0, if he would find it first.
I wasn’t suggesting that the things I mentioned must be included for blender to make an impact. I’d consider a ‘complete rebuild’ as francoistarlier mentioned (and who i was respondeding to) to be ‘from the ground up’. Recoded, that’s all and that’s with reference to this thread topic the big 3.0!
Is everyhting being rebuilt? The sequencer, nodes, BI Internal, Particles, Softbodies etc etc or just wrapped? Again this is not a complaint. A Version 3.0 of blender in my opinion would have to have far more than transferring much of 2.49 to get to a point as Ton says where functionality is on a par with 2.49. UI + animation system recode + BMesh yes, but everything rebuilt from the ground up, No.
Not that any of this subjective 2.5 or 3.0 matters, 2.5 is and will be a big impact, UI and animation wise.