LibreOffice Version Update Snap package vs debian package

[dln949]

My OS is Ubuntu 17.04. A month or so ago I installed the snap package of LO, which is version 5.4.3.2. I did this because I THOUGHT the benefits of snap packages include: (A) They will update themselves automatically; and, (B) The maintainer - in this case, LO - will always insure that the most current version of the software is available as a snap package. So, whenever LO would come out with a new version, my copy of LO would automatically update to that new version ASAP because I installed it using the LO snap package. Well…

I see that about two weeks ago LO published version 5.4.4, and it is available as a debian package to download. Well, I assumed that my copy of LO installed using the snap package would on its own update to version 5.4.4. So far, it has not after two weeks.

Why is that?

If snap packages do not update automatically to the new version when it is available, then it seems some of the things written about them are wrong, and they aren’t as great as they are made to sound. Or, am I misunderstanding something?

[khanson679]

I’m not terribly familiar with Snaps or Snap development, but your description of their intended purpose sounds about right.

For reasons unknown to me, someone at Snapcraft seems to be in charge of this (rather than TDF), and they haven’t been keeping the LO snap up to date.

I brought this up at Snapcraft in August 2017, when the development versions were behind. There was some subsequent discussion about changing the available channels to better match the direct downloads, etc., but nothing has changed yet. Furthermore, all versions are behind as of January 2018.

As for why this is happening, perhaps there are some technical or institutional difficulties, or perhaps the maintainer simply isn’t staying on top of things.