Joomla! Documentation™

Summary of what's been discussed.

The original requested way that it should work is illustrated in this example:

Original

<compatibility>
  <version>1.5</version>
  <version>2.5</version>
  <version>3.0.1</version>
  <version>4</version>
<compatibility>

Is interpretted as:

• Joomla 1.5: compatible
• Joomla 1.6: not compatible
• Joomla 1.7: not compatible
• Joomla 2.5: compatible
• Joomla 3.0: compatible for 3.0.1 and up in the 3.0 version
• Joomla 3.1: not compatible
• Joomla 3.2: not compatible
• Joomla 3.5: not compatible
• Joomla 4:0: compatible
• Joomla 4.1: compatible
• Joomla 4.2: compatible
• Joomla 4.5: compatible

Accidentally coded as

<compatibility>
  <version>1.5</version>
  <version>2.5</version>
  <version>3.0.1</version>
  <version>4</version>
<compatibility>

Is interpretted as:

• Joomla 1.5: compatible
• Joomla 1.6: not compatible
• Joomla 1.7: not compatible
• Joomla 2.5: compatible
• Joomla 3.0: compatible only for 3.0.1
• Joomla 3.1: not compatible
• Joomla 3.2: not compatible
• Joomla 3.5: not compatible
• Joomla 4:0: compatible
• Joomla 4.1: compatible
• Joomla 4.2: compatible
• Joomla 4.5: compatible

The above was changed to the original specifications, but some people continued to argue whether "3.0.1" should mean "compatible for 3.0.1 through 3.0.x" or "only for 3.0.1".

Composer

Others thought, we shouldn't use either of the above, but should use: Composer

99%-100% of the code is written for the original implementation. The getcomposer approach is not written.