[Question] Is there any reason why the tag latest is still v0.39.3 and the tag next is still v1.0.0-beta.1 for the gcr.io/kpt-dev/kpt container image?

[mathieu-benoit]

Is there any reason why the tag latest is still v0.39.3 and the tag next is still v1.0.0-beta.1 for the gcr.io/kpt-dev/kpt container image?

They are both dated from June 2021.

I don't have the history in mind about v0.39.3, is it still a thing? I understand that in June 2021 you got a transition and that's maybe why you got these 2 tags latest and next. But I'm wondering if that's something that could be revisited now?

The context of my question is when we use gcr.io/kpt-dev/kpt in Cloud Build (example here), we are using a very old version v0.39.3. If using next same issue with an old version. Otherwise we could use a specific v1.0.0-beta.* to use recent versions, but that's not convenient in the context Cloud Build to update the version any time there is a new version.

Thoughts?

[droot]

Thanks for raising this Mathieu.

I touched on this briefly #3134 but we have decided to move way from latest and next floating tags because kpt is still in beta and we run the risk of breaking downstream users with floating tags (ran into this problem with Istio packaging :) and learnt the hard way). It's good practice to use a fully qualified versions in the tags (especially in config domain). I know it's inconvenient but the benefits outweighs cost here.

We will revisit this closer to when we get v1.0 because the API will be fully stable then. Hope this answers the question.

[mathieu-benoit]

Thanks @droot.

So if I understand this correctly:

1. latest will still point to v0.39.3, until v1.0 makes it out from beta, right?
2. next will still point to v1.0.0-beta.1 and not v1.0.0-beta.15, right? Not sure to get why here.

The context of this again, is that in Cloud Build, any step is a container image, and the usual practice is not to use a specific version in order to use everytime the latest version. The side effect here, is that if you use gcr.io/kpt-dev/kpt (example here) you are actually using v0.39.3. And if I use next, you using v1.0.0-beta.1. I understand the point with floating tags, but here I think this could generate some confusions.