word choice - "Above" or "later" when referencing a range of versions of software


Which is correct when referencing an operating system version "OS X 10.6.x and later" or "OS X 10.6.x and above"?


Bonus points for providing the why.



Answer



At the computer magazines where I work, our house style is to use "OS X 10.6.1 or later" when referring to a situation where the content of the sentence suggests that we're talking about an individual machine (hypothetical or not) that will be running one particular operating system:



To use this app, you must be running OS X 10.6.1 or later."



Similarly, we use "OS X 10.6.1 and later" when we're talking about multiple versions of the OS:



The bug affects multiple versions of the operating system—OS X 10.6.1 and later.



We try not to use "or above," "and above," "or up," or "and up," mainly because we view version numbers as being essentially timeline markers rather than markers of quantity. The expressions "or newer" and "and newer" would be fine under this interpretation of version numbers, but we've tried to standardize on one expression for greater consistency in presenting the information to readers.


I wouldn't claim that any of the expressions I've mentioned here are fundamentally incorrect.


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