Bug 432919

Summary:	Kompare shows wildly different versions in Discover vs. apps.kde.org due to not using the release service's version numbering scheme
Product:	[Applications] kompare	Reporter:	Dan Dascalescu <ddascalescu+kde>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Kompare developers <kompare-devel>
Status:	CONFIRMED ---
Severity:	normal	CC:	aleixpol, nate
Priority:	NOR
Version:	4.1.20122
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	Kubuntu
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments:	Screencast

Description Dan Dascalescu 2021-02-14 08:59:17 UTC

SUMMARY
This may be due to my misunderstanding of how versions work with KDE, but I though other users may be confused by this too.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Navigate to https://apps.kde.org/en/kompare
2. Click "Install on Linux"
3. Select either source in Discover, Snap or uubuntu-focal-universe

OBSERVED RESULT
The versions are wildly different in Discover, vs. on Kompare's home page:
- 4:19.12.3-0ubuntu1
- 20.04.0 with Snap
- 4.1.20122 February 4, 2021 on https://apps.kde.org/en/kompare

Comment 1 Dan Dascalescu 2021-02-14 09:17:28 UTC

Created attachment 135676 [details]
Screencast

Comment 2 Aleix Pol 2021-02-15 13:03:59 UTC

snap and ubuntu versions make sense to me. There might be a problem with how the website renders it, I'm not sure where they get their information from. I'll ask.

Comment 3 Nate Graham 2021-02-16 19:11:06 UTC

So what's going on here is that Kompare has opted not to use the common version numbering scheme for the release service (which is year.month.minor version). This fine, in the abstract.

However your distro has opted to ignore this and package it using the release service's version number anyway, for their own convenience. It appears that the Snap version does the same thing. This is less fine, though still understandable. However it results in a mismatch between the version number displayed in Discover (which comes from the distro/flathub/etc) and the version number displayed in the app and on the website, which come from/.

You could argue that Discover should display the version number from the app's AppStream data, if present, rather than always using the version number that the distro provides for the package itself. However not all apps have AppStream data for their version numbers, and this would still result in a mismatch between the version number shown between sources.

The ultimate problem here is the fact that Kompare's version numbering system is using the release service but not using its version numbering scheme, which is annoying distros enough that they override it, which confuses users like you. Ultimately the best solution IMO is for apps which use the release service to always use the version numbering of the release service itself, rather than using their own version numbering.

Moving to Kompare so that option can be discussed.