Re: A few general questions from a Debian newbie
On 11/13/05, Scott <angrykeyboarder@angrykeyboarder.com> wrote:
> Robert Brockway wrote:
> > It's normal for the Debian security team to backport changes into the
> > existing code base in Debian. Thus I expect the Firefox 1.04 to be the
> > vanilla source 1.04 plus backported security fixes. This is a _good_
> > thing as it means less changes on an update. This is one of the
> > strengths of the Debian approach.
>
> Perhaps, but it's also confusing to anyone coming to Debian from another
> Linux distro. Let's just hope they *properly* update the user agent
> string..
>
> I say, that approach is fine, but why not show the right freakin version
> number? Even if they didn't have to backport, patching would be simpler
> than starting over from scratch anyway. Heck the next version of
> Firefox will do it that way anyway (assuming one is using a version
> downloaded from Mozilla, that is).
There's actually a very good reason. If the version number is
1.0.4-[patchlevel], it's reasonable to assume that the extensions and
plugins API/ABI hasn't changed. I don't recall there being a change
between 1.0.4 and 1.0.7, but there *might* have been. Also, sarge is
getting the security patches, not necessarily all of the feature
patches. Imagine the nightmare of trying to figure out via the
Mozilla forums why feature X doesn't work in your installation of
1.0.7 when what you really have is 1.0.4+backported security fixes
from .5, .6, and .7.
In short, the patched version of Firefox in sarge is *not* 1.0.7, so
calling it 1.0.7 would be a mistake.
--
Michael A. Marsh
http://www.umiacs.umd.edu/~mmarsh
http://mamarsh.blogspot.com
Reply to: