New versions of packages are not backported
| Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu |
Invalid
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned | ||
Bug Description
While using Ubuntu, I bump into this problem again and again. Let's take an example: the VICE Commodore emulator. The version in the Gutsy repository is 1.20, even when version 1.22 is also out. What's more, it is included in Hardy!
Now, why do I have to upgrade my WHOLE operating system (note: Hardy is not even alpha), just to receive a new version? I have downloaded the source, and it compiled perfectly under Gutsy. So what is the reason behind not including it into Gutsy?
And VICE isn't the only such application. Other examples can be found in bugs #52169, #2596 and #129043. And I am sure there are many more. UQM was also like this around Dapper/Edgy.
Now, I may understand that packages upon which other packages depend are not upgraded / backported. However, we are talking about end-applications here (apps in the bug reports above, VICE and UQM are like that, too). Nothing would break if you upgraded them whenever a new version came out. Ok, don't do this for LTS releases; but for others, please, update the stable versions, and don't force your users to use outdated software.
| Richard Hansen (rhansen) wrote | #1 |
I too am frequently frustrated with the lack of bleeding-edge versions in the most current release of Ubuntu. However, there are good reasons for not constantly upgrading packages for a particular distribution. For one, the effort required to closely track upstream, provide packages for all releases of Ubuntu, and handle bug reports would be enormous. In addition, changing versions outside the normal development cycle would increase the likelihood of introducing critical bugs. Restricting package updates to the development version of Ubuntu keeps critical bugs introduced by new versions from affecting the average user who doesn't need the bleeding-edge version.
Fortunately, there's usually a way to get the most bleeding-edge version of a package: prevu. This handy little program makes it relatively easy to backport packages from the development version of Ubuntu to the current release. See https:/