[Novalug] Firefox versioning

[Megan Larko]

Hello List,

I am curious again about software package version numbers.   I recall from past experience that 
sometimes security patches and bug fixes are put into software packages which may use a slightly 
different version number than the main software host site (usually for downloads and installs from a 
source tarball, for example).    My curiousity was piqued by a Windows Vista set of patches for the 
Firefox web browser (the patches are invoked from the firefox setting to notify the user of new 
patches) which reflect the firefox software version on the http://www.mozilla.com website using 
version number 3.5.6.     Looking at the patch information, some of the patches seem to be a very 
good idea.    I set myself to upgrading firefox on my CentOS 5.3 and Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty systems.
Both of the two latter systems indicate that they are current on firefox software version via yum 
for CentOS and wajig for Ubuntu.   The firefox version for those two systems is 3.0.15-3 (CentOS) 
and 3.0.15 (Ubuntu 9.04).

My understanding is that 3.5.6 is a major version modification from 3.0.15 (based on my limited 
understanding of the significance of the second digit in a version number).

Finally my question:  Do I need to uninstall firefox linux package to get the 3.5.x series or are 
there linux version number events going on to keep the deps in line?

Cheers!
megan

Ubuntu 9.04 sample:
larkoc at larkoc-Ubuntu:~$ firefox --version
Mozilla Firefox 3.0.15, Copyright (c) 1998 - 2009 mozilla.org
larkoc at larkoc-Ubuntu:~$ sudo wajig upgrade firefox
[sudo] password for larkoc:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
firefox is already the newest version.
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
   libdns45
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 5 not upgraded.
larkoc at larkoc-Ubuntu:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=jaunty
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.04"