Version numbers only appear to be folly because proper engineering discipline has not been applied when managing the stability and/or backwards-compatibility of shared interfaces.
If more developers cared about versioning their software appropriately based on incompatible changes or stability guarantees, it would significantly reduce the costs of maintaining OS software distributions and providing integrated software stacks to users.
If more developers cared about versioning their software appropriately based on incompatible changes or stability guarantees, it would significantly reduce the costs of maintaining OS software distributions and providing integrated software stacks to users.