Latest upstream release: 1.100 Current version in Fedora Rawhide: 1.84 URL: http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/nc/netcat.c?rev=. Please consult the package update guidelines before you issue an update to a stable branch: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Package_update_guidelines More information about the service that created this bug can be found at: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Upstream_release_monitoring
1.84 is five and a half years old. 1.100 brings more features and bugs fixed.
If I remember correctly, it wasn't really possible to run new versions of OpenBSD netcat on Linux systems. I was even thinking of switching to some other implementation, though it's hard to choose one. I'll see what can be done here.
* netcat flavors - original: http://nc110.sf.net/ - up to date (included in nmap, already in fedora): http://nmap.org/ncat/ - up to date (already in fedora): http://www.dest-unreach.org/socat/ - with transport encryption (unmaintained-2005): http://cryptcat.sf.net/ - gnu (unmaintained-2004): http://netcat.sf.net/ - openbsd(only *BSD ??): http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.bin/nc/ socat or ncat. And they are already in fedora.
There are currently several packages [1] depending explicitly on this package. There's a chance they would work with socat or ncat without modifications. Concerning current OpenBSD nc -- it's possible to bend it a little and sacrifice some features. However, having fewer implementations of the same tool sounds definitely better. [1] $ repoquery --whatrequires nc nc-0:1.84-23.fc14.x86_64 freenx-server-0:0.7.3-18.fc13.x86_64 lbd-0:0.2-2.fc14.noarch ldm-0:2.0.46-1.fc12.x86_64 libvirt-client-0:0.8.3-2.fc14.i686 libvirt-client-0:0.8.3-2.fc14.x86_64 mldonkey-0:3.0.3-1.fc14.x86_64
Just a note: Given socat differences and nmap package size, I've decided to keep OpenBSD nc around.