I disagree. A great recent example is that DirectX 12 is more similar to Vulkan, than it is DirectX 11 or OpenGL 4. I would actually say it's quite common. I've seen numerous times where a new version of a project is more similar to other projects than it's previous iteration. The reason is simple: the field has progressed. Now certainly there are new "major" releases that are simply breaking changes with no fundamental changes, but I think it depends on your field: native libraries rarely change because it's well worn, the web changes every few days it seems like. But my point is that if we should distinguish between: conceptual changes, breaking changes and the iteration number (e.g. non-breaking changes and patches), and we want to simplify it, then we should merge breaking changes and conceptual changes, as described by the article.