[Slackbuilds-users] Version choice for Libre Office

[David Spencer]

> Alternatively, SBo could host a "fresh" and a "still" version for the
> respective newest branch and just prior branch.  This is how the LibreOffice
> site separates their downloads.  It wouldn't be the first piece of software
> with two SlackBuilds for different versions.

In a weak sense, this is already available -- you can clone the git
repo and go back to a previous version.

When a new version is available upstream, the maintainer needs to find
a balance.  If the SlackBuild will work with no other changes, or if
it will break dependent packages in the repo, I am more likely to skip
it, unless there are nice new features or important bugfixes. Well,
that's what I tell myself, but really it depends on my experience with
the upstream project.  If their upgrades are usually a pain, then the
SlackBuild will get less frequent upgrades :O

If there are major changes coming I am more likely to do SlackBuilds
for release candidates in my own github repo, and other maintainers do
that too, so if you have a favourite application, it's worth stalking
your maintainer :-)

Sometimes I wonder if it would be worth having a way to flag out of
date packages, like Arch, but for many reasons an email to the
maintainer works better if you think it is significant.  And at the
end of the day most SlackBuilds will work well when you specify a
different VERSION.  The tools could support that better, but that's
another story.

-D.