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Ubuntu version numbers don't match the rest of the space, and it's not clear why they don't or how they actually work.

For instance, there's openSSL 1.0.1n and 1.0.1f-1ubuntu9.8

What's the reasoning for this? What does the ubuntu part of the version number mean? I'm not asking why 1.0.1n isn't available yet, I'm asking why the equivalent (in terms of security patches) has a name that cannot be compared.

Vynce
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1 Answers1

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As you probably know, Ubuntu is a fork of Debian. This means that per each version of Ubuntu lots of packages come from the Debian version on which that Ubuntu version is based. The trailing nomenclature is added to keep track of the history of the package.

  • 1.0.1f: this is plainly the version of OpenSSL included in the package;
  • 1: this is the Debian version of the package; 0 would have meant that the package was not present in Debian and that the package was added to Ubuntu by Canonical; its absence would have meant that the package was added by Debian itself, rather than deriving from an upstream;
  • ubuntu: this means that the package has been updated from the Debian version of the package; it's absence would have meant that the package wasn't updated from the Debian version of the package (i.e. that the Debian package was included directly without modifications);
  • 9.8: this is the version of the Ubuntu package

So openssl-1.0.1f-1ubuntu9.8 is revision 9.8 of the openssl Ubuntu package, which is based on revision 1 of the openssl Debian package, and which contains OpenSSL 1.0.1f.

You can find more information on the Debian packages' version numbering here or by running the command man 5 deb-version.

Jared Beck
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kos
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