I don't understand how some packages are managed in Ubuntu. How are they moved from unstable to testing?
The Debian FAQ says:
- Unstable has the most recent (latest) versions. But the packages in unstable are not well tested and might have bugs
- Stable contains old versions of packages. But this package is well tested
- Testing falls between these two extremes
At the moment I'm running Raring 13.04 (unstable). Saucy 13.10 (testing) has more recent packages, which breaks this rule.
Solution
Ubuntu's version management is not the same as Debian's one: It's development which then becomes, gets merged into, stable.
The current state of Ubuntu is:
- Ubuntu Raring 13.04 is stable
- Ubuntu Saucy 13.10 is development
So it's all normal to have more recent packages in Saucy. See answers for more details.
Misunderstanding solved ;)
Extension
Well, now I understood raring is stable and saucy development (now is shifted to "saucy --> trusty" as well), how can this situation be explained regarding the 'virtualbox' package:
- raring (4.2.10-dfsg-0ubuntu2.1)
- saucy (4.2.16-dfsg-3)
- virtualbox (4.3.0-89960~Ubuntu~raring)
Here, raring provides newer than saucy, which fits Ubuntu's workflow.
But VirtualBox provides newest to stable Ubuntu versions, instead of the development one.
Since the Ubuntu development version is intended to be merged as a stable Ubuntu in the end, it doesn't make sense for VirtualBox to provide for stable and not for development.
Any input about that ?