I for one (or maybe I for pi) have zero regrets and am very glad that I have been using the nightlies. But just as an FYI I have trouble following the above discussion… I think all have already tried their best at explaining so no need to continue for my sake.
For a start realise that there are at least three kinds of objects, in roughly decreasing granularity: releases, tags, and builds.
Btw, if I was a programmer I would immediately – today! – program into that Kicad whatever version number the “automatic via” option, which means when routing, anywhere on whatever layer, when getting stuck somewhere, and don’t we all get stuck often, Kicad will automatically insert a via (chosen by time, for example maybe 1 to 3 seconds from getting stuck there) to be able to smoothly continue the routing with a cool smile and a cigarette in the corner of our mouths, just to get rid of the quite meaningless manual “V” hit on the keyboard to get just the same via. Is this a possible option in the near future?
It’s great to hear that you’re not a programmer then! Also, smoking is bad for health! 
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“It’s great to hear that you’re not a programmer then”
Why?
When I’m doing my round to get some more coffee I do not want to come back and see my monitor suddenly full of holes (or auto generated via’s).
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That’s a good one! Though, even if I happen to go on holiday on my way to that cup of coffee, it would only lead to 1 via, or actually not 1 actual via, only one suggested via – in the same position as if put manually. And, on many boards vias are not dangerous, not anymore, not even expensive…
There’s no signle standard/strategy when it comes to versioning, but indeed - the naming convention used by KiCad team is not the most usual way.
Early nightlies with the new features showing up would be a Pre-alpha nigthlies stage.
This would later turn into Alpha builds, while still doing changes to the overall design/features. This Alpha stage is a major target for heavy bug-hunting.
Feature-complete builds which are supposed to be mainly free from obvious bugs would be usually called Beta versions. New Betas could be seen everyday, after applying new set of commits to the codebase.
And that’s where we currently are (probably).
The RCx builds are particular snapshots of what would try to become a Released (production) version. Typically, their code base does get only bugfixes which are supposed to be included before release. Once in a while, a new RC build can emerge before all is fixed. New features/commits go into other branch (like x.1 Alpha)
And then we get original Release.
With KiCad, we don’t see anything named “Alpha” or “Beta” and that’s OK. The number of issues targeted for the 6.0 release indicates we’re now at some mature Beta stage as for the RC I’d expect all “6.0 Release” targeting issues to be addressed.
The Continuous Integration probably messes up things a bit, especially around RCs. Because, what are the daily builds with single commit after e.g. RC1? Are they RC2, RC3, RCn? Naming them RC1-commitnumber is probably not the typical approach as RCs usually are particular, identifiable “long-term” versions (i.e. not chainging on a daily basis where two RC1s can behave differently).
It’s all about the naming, nothing else. But it’s probably what causes the confusion here.
It is perhaps ironic that the 5.99 nightlies have been more stable than many other competing packages for quite some time now. Apart from the ever evolving file naming conventions and directory changes 5.99 has been perfectly usable for well over a year.
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Indeed. But for many users 5.99 means ‘here be dragons’ and something they won’t touch with a barge pole. On the other hand, 6.0(RC) means something just needing a few tweaks that more users may be willing to try. At this stage, more people using the software is needed to identify any bugs.
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