diff --git a/protos/table.proto b/protos/table.proto
index d8f637a5d04..4a2606e7017 100644
--- a/protos/table.proto
+++ b/protos/table.proto
@@ -58,6 +58,13 @@ message Manifest {
     // that the library is semantically versioned, this is a string. However, if it
     // is semantically versioned, it should be a valid semver string without any 'v'
     // prefix. For example: `2.0.0`, `2.0.0-rc.1`.
+    //
+    // Compatibility note: The Lance Rust library in versions <=0.38.3 would
+    // panic if it encountered a non-semver version string here or a version string
+    // with anything more than major, minor, patch version. For example, a "1.2.3-beta"
+    // version string would cause a panic. For compatibility with older datasets, the 
+    // Lance Rust library always writes version as "X.Y.Z" without any pre-release or build
+    // metadata.
     string version = 2;
   }
 
diff --git a/python/python/tests/forward_compat/test_compat.py b/python/python/tests/forward_compat/test_compat.py
index a9b3ec8fbee..5e57dac5c71 100644
--- a/python/python/tests/forward_compat/test_compat.py
+++ b/python/python/tests/forward_compat/test_compat.py
@@ -6,6 +6,8 @@
 # This file will be run on older versions of Lance to test that the
 # current version of Lance can read the test data generated by datagen.py.
 
+import shutil
+
 import lance
 import pyarrow as pa
 import pyarrow.compute as pc
@@ -116,3 +118,52 @@ def test_list_indices_ignores_new_fts_index_version():
     indices = ds.list_indices()
     # the new index version should be ignored
     assert len(indices) == 0
+
+
+@pytest.mark.forward
+@pytest.mark.skipif(
+    Version(lance.__version__) < Version("0.20.0"),
+    reason="Version is too old to read index files stored with Lance 2.0 file format",
+)
+def test_write_scalar_index(tmp_path: str):
+    path = get_path("scalar_index")
+    # copy to tmp path to avoid modifying original
+    shutil.copytree(path, tmp_path, dirs_exist_ok=True)
+
+    ds = lance.dataset(tmp_path)
+    data = pa.table(
+        {
+            "idx": pa.array([1000]),
+            "btree": pa.array([1000]),
+            "bitmap": pa.array([1000]),
+            "label_list": pa.array([["label1000"]]),
+            "ngram": pa.array(["word1000"]),
+            "zonemap": pa.array([1000]),
+            "bloomfilter": pa.array([1000]),
+        }
+    )
+    ds.insert(data)
+    # ds.optimize.optimize_indices()
+    ds.optimize.compact_files()
+
+
+@pytest.mark.forward
+@pytest.mark.skipif(
+    Version(lance.__version__) < Version("0.36.0"),
+    reason="FTS token set format was introduced in 0.36.0",
+)
+def test_write_fts(tmp_path: str):
+    path = get_path("fts_index")
+    # copy to tmp path to avoid modifying original
+    shutil.copytree(path, tmp_path, dirs_exist_ok=True)
+
+    ds = lance.dataset(tmp_path)
+    data = pa.table(
+        {
+            "idx": pa.array([1000]),
+            "text": pa.array(["new document to index"]),
+        }
+    )
+    ds.insert(data)
+    # ds.optimize.optimize_indices()
+    ds.optimize.compact_files()
diff --git a/rust/lance-table/src/format/manifest.rs b/rust/lance-table/src/format/manifest.rs
index 11512065c7c..3cc07d7bff7 100644
--- a/rust/lance-table/src/format/manifest.rs
+++ b/rust/lance-table/src/format/manifest.rs
@@ -759,9 +759,11 @@ impl WriterVersion {
 impl Default for WriterVersion {
     #[cfg(not(test))]
     fn default() -> Self {
+        let mut version = semver::Version::parse(env!("CARGO_PKG_VERSION")).unwrap();
+        version.pre = semver::Prerelease::EMPTY;
         Self {
             library: "lance".to_string(),
-            version: env!("CARGO_PKG_VERSION").to_string(),
+            version: version.to_string(),
         }
     }