Numbering scheme

[Dana Canfield]

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but I had planned to try to document
changes between pre-releases at the todo-list site (I've seen quite a
few messages to the list saying "did anything change from alpha XX to
alpha YY?"), but I'm confused about the release numbering.  Alpha 16 &
Beta 1 were both released on Nov. 10, and and then Alpha 17 appeared on
Nov. 17th.  I realize that the weekly builds that are numbered Alpha are
probably automatic builds, but where do they fit in to the scheme of
things with regards to the betas, etc.  Is it something where the
"beta" tarballs are in a feature freeze, and the alpha tarballs are
still free-for-alls (in which case, shouldn't they be 2.1.1prealpha or
2.0.1 or something)?  Or is it that the betas are just cleaned up
versions of the weekly alphas,?

Thanks