This was more of a stab at "semantic" part of the semantic versioning (which similar to <div> in semantic Web... found its own semantics that don't follow from its definitions). You are definitely not the only one using it like this.

I believe this is the problem with the format of semantic version which seem to assume that releases only happen to software ready to be... released :)

My preferred course of action in such situations is not specify a version at all.

> My preferred course of action in such situations is not specify a version at all.

This doesn't work because, well, I do make releases and they need some numbers)

That's a contradiction. You cannot release a software that you didn't release. :)

If you release it, it has to start with version one. Zero is for non-released versions.

Okay, call it "labeled code snapshots")