Package version updates policy

Posted by Sandman4 on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by Sandman4
Published on 2012-12-03T08:31:40Z Indexed on 2012/12/03 12:02 UTC
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packages

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versions

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bind

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sru

Not sure if here it's the right place to ask, if not - please point me to the right direction.

Let's say there's a package, for the sake of real-world example - bind9. In Precise and in Quantal it's version 9.8.1. The original developer (ISC) currently provide versions 9.8.4 which is a bugfix release in the 9.8 line, and 9.9.2 which is a "new features" branch. It looks like when a security issue is encountered, the specific bugfix is backported into 9.8.1.

Now the question: Why maintainers don't just update to the latest bugfix release ? Why to backport only certain patches ? Is it intentionally or just there's no maintaner who would take the effort to update to the latest bugfix release ?

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