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The major version number of Gnuastro is increased similar to that of each program. Currently (prior to Gnuastro 1.0), the aim is to have a complete system for data manipulation and analysis at least similar to IRAF8. So an astronomer can take all the standard data analysis steps (starting from raw data to the final reduced product and standard post-reduction tools) with the various programs in Gnuastro.
The maintainers of each camera or detector on a telescope can provide a completely transparent shell script to the observer for data analysis. This script can set configuration files for all the required programs to work with that particular camera. The script can then run the proper programs in the proper sequence. The user/observer can easily follow the standard shell script to understand (and modify) each step and the parameters used easily. Bash (or other modern GNU/Linux shell scripts) are very powerful and made for this gluing job. This will simultaneously improve performance and transparency.
In order to achieve this and allow maximal creativity with the shell, the various programs have to be very low level programs and completely independent. Something like the GNU Coreutils.
Read in other formats.
GNU Astronomy Utilities manual, November 2015.