Visvanath Ratnaweera

I see that you think the same way: 3.11 is a version, 3.11.5 is a release. A version grows, a release, once released, is frozen. That is the most intuitive thing to me, but I don't know whether it is accepted in the Moodle universe.

Following https://moodledev.io/general/releases/ I found URLs like https://moodledev.io/general/releases/3.11, which contradict my definition of 3.11 (it is a version, not a release). I think I found the source of this confusion: Moodle has the habit of calling the first release, say 3.11.0 just 3.11. So https://moodledev.io/general/releases/ also has URLs like https://moodledev.io/general/releases/3.11.5, which are true releases.

Morale: Zero is not nothing!

The answer was in the other post: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=455296#p1829136.

Talking of marching forward, the advised route is first upgrade to the latest/final release of the running version, in your case 3.11.18, and think of the next version. Yes, "long jumps" in the third number is allowed, for example 3.11.5 > 3.11.18 is perfectly OK, but not in the second number, for example 3.9.25 > 4.3.3 is not allowed. Ref. the route planer http://www.syndrega.ch/blog/#php-and-dbms-compatibility-of-major-moodle-releases.

The contradiction is just nomenclature. 3.11 (two numbers) is a Moodle *version*. Versions get fixes, 3.11.5, 3.11.6,.. (three numbers) which are called *releases*. Fixing a release doesn't make sense - it it out, released!