The version number of USB always had been the specification, hence why you have e.g. "Gen2x2".
But this doesn't mean you want to bump the major version number without making any major changes to it, for example create a new (backward compatible) protocol instead of a new extension to the current protocol.
I mean if we look at it from various perspectives:
- for users it's still the exact same kind of USB, just better labels in the future so even just bumping it to 4.1 would be misleading and 5.0 could be said to be outright user hostile if you consider how it will be misused to sell things
- for tech people 4.1 probably would be the most appropriate but 5.0 would be still misleading
- for people working on usb tech it's also mostly the same and 5.0 would probably still cause additional friction about what needs and doesn't need to be done when discussing it with management
So IMHO 5.0 would be an horrible choice 4.1 would have been nice but I can understand why they didn't do it I think calling it revision 2 instead of version 2 would probably be the most appropriate, except if they already use revision for spelling/formulation improvements idk.
EDIT: In context of them adding a new major alternate mode 4.1 would have been the most appropriate. But then there was a lot of consumer confusion around 3.1, 3.2 and my point about it not being useful for consumers still holds as e.g. a USB 3.2 device doesn't need to support anything added since 3.1 so given that they want to make it less hostile for users it even somewhat makes sense no matter how stupid version 4.0 version 2 sound.
But this doesn't mean you want to bump the major version number without making any major changes to it, for example create a new (backward compatible) protocol instead of a new extension to the current protocol.
I mean if we look at it from various perspectives:
- for users it's still the exact same kind of USB, just better labels in the future so even just bumping it to 4.1 would be misleading and 5.0 could be said to be outright user hostile if you consider how it will be misused to sell things
- for tech people 4.1 probably would be the most appropriate but 5.0 would be still misleading
- for people working on usb tech it's also mostly the same and 5.0 would probably still cause additional friction about what needs and doesn't need to be done when discussing it with management
So IMHO 5.0 would be an horrible choice 4.1 would have been nice but I can understand why they didn't do it I think calling it revision 2 instead of version 2 would probably be the most appropriate, except if they already use revision for spelling/formulation improvements idk.
EDIT: In context of them adding a new major alternate mode 4.1 would have been the most appropriate. But then there was a lot of consumer confusion around 3.1, 3.2 and my point about it not being useful for consumers still holds as e.g. a USB 3.2 device doesn't need to support anything added since 3.1 so given that they want to make it less hostile for users it even somewhat makes sense no matter how stupid version 4.0 version 2 sound.