Build id vs Version number in Synaptic

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Tue, 10 Oct 2017 07:53:36 +0200, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
>On Mon, 9 Oct 2017 15:31:21 -0500, Jim wrote:
>>Why do some packages use a build id to show the latest version and 
>>others seem to use a version number?  For example Libreoffice Calc
>>shows a build id while Firefox shows a version number.
>>
>>This sometimes makes it difficult to determine how current a package
>>in a repository is when comparing it to a version of a program you may
>>have seen on the net.  
>
>Hi,
>
>https://www.google.de/search?q=ubuntu+package+versioning
>
>leads to e.g.
>
>http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/xenial/man5/deb-version.5.html
>
>It's not clear to me what you are actually asking regarding
>
>libreoffice-calc (1:5.1.6~rc2-0ubuntu1~xenial2)
>https://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial-updates/libreoffice-calc
>
>firefox (56.0+build6-0ubuntu0.14.04.2 and others)
>https://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty-updates/firefox

resp.
firefox (56.0+build6-0ubuntu0.16.04.2 and others) 
https://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial-updates/firefox

>?
>
>You could use google to get information about special details and
>general versoning schemes, also consider to read Wiki pages, e.g.
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning#Designating_development_stage
>
>FWIW sometimes the versioning needs to be detailed, because versioning
>done by upstream leads to misunderstandings, especially if building an
>unreleased version from git necessarily is required, e.g.
>
>[root at moonstudio ~]# jackd --version | head -1
>jackdmp 1.9.11
>[root at moonstudio ~]# apt list jackd2 2>/dev/null | tail -1
>jackd2/xenial,now 1.9.10+20150825git1ed50c92~dfsg-1ubuntu1 amd64
>[installed]
>
>Sometimes upstream doesn't provide a version at all, so the only
>landmark is the date.
>
>Regards,
>Ralf



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