Yes, that is right. That's why it's a big deal, and worthy of HN.

Now, the situation would be better if 2.0.x had been released.

Troy Will, the maintainer, had put stow into maintenance mode, and basically stopped after 1.3.3. Kahlil Hodgson did a major rewrite that became Stow 2. The both contributed to it a bit, getting us to 2.0.2.

Stow 2.0.2 was considered stable, and though it could be downloaded from Savannah, Troy felt uncomfortable releasing it officially because he was unfamiliar with the code and felt he couldn't maintain it, or address any problems found. Kahlil wasn't willing to step up as maintainer.

So, 2.1.x marks Adam Spiers becoming involved in the project.

Here is the thread that sparked this: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/stow-devel/2011-11/msg000...

(I am the Luke Shumaker quoted in the beginning of the thread. I had an email exchange with Troy about this back in February, but it happened off-list)

That would appear to be correct. See http://www.gnu.org/s/stow, under "Latest news."