fwiw, in Gentoo, we currently do it like this:
- 550.127.05 for our stable branch
- 550.135 is in testing to become the next stable (it’s just given bit of a testing period first unless urgent)
- 560.35.03 was formerly in our “testing” (or “unstable”) branch and meant to stay there, but was removed due to being affected by security vulnerabilities (that are fixed in 550.127.05 and 565.57.01)
- 565.57.01 was formerly in a “opt-in” only branch (aka, think of it like bleeding edge), but was moved the “testing” branch due to people needing it for wayland and e.g. Plasma 6 too much
(it’s not due to ever be moved to the stable branch, but users are free to opt-in testing versions from the stable branch if they really want to)
And currently “hoping” that 565.x will become the next production branch after it’s out of beta so we can make it more widely available in the stable branch with less risks of exposing users to major WIP regressions that they didn’t voluntary opt-in (it may instead become the next NFB though, don’t know NVIDIA’s plans for this beta).
As for Windows, drivers use different versioning/branches and I wouldn’t compare it with the linux model.
Anyhow, this is kind of of off-topic for this thread so I don’t plan to discuss this further here.