upgrading application packages

[don]

Case in poinmt: SquirrelMail.
I have/use SquirrelMail 1.4.0-1 as included with FC1.
It has some bugs that are fixed in newer releases.

I have no idea what the cycle time is from when a third-party product like
that is made available and when a new update is available via up2date.

I'd like to get the newer version of SquirrelMail (and mrtg, Evolution and
Mozilla, and ?) but I don't know what the process is if I try to get newer
versions from upstream. I think that can lead to a mess.

I don't mean to sound impatient, I'm just trying to learn what the process
is. Maybe I can help?

Cheers,
Don