Proprietary software developers often start at version 1 for the first release of a program and increment the major version number with each rewrite. This can mean that a program can reach version 3 within a few months of development, before it is considered stable or reliable.
In contrast to this, the free-software community tends to use version 1.0 as a major milestone, indicating that the software is "complete", that it has all major features, and is considered reliable enough for general release.
Quote SourceThe above description is how I and most geeks view version 1.0 software. Slashdot readers and editors will understand that 1.0 means that we're ready for business. Getting on Slashdot is the best advertising opportunity we'll probably get for a very long time, so to willfully pass it up seems unwise to me.