coreutils version number policy

[Heiner Steven]

Hello,

please excuse me if this is not the right mailing list to ask
the question.

I have two different systems (Debina and SuSE), both with
coreutils version 5.2.1 installed. The "uniq" commands on both
system print the same version number (5.2.1), but support different
command line options. In particular the first system's "uniq" supports
the "-W" option, the second system's "uniq" does not.

Is this a (version numbering) bug, or intended behavior?
I thought that the "coreutils" version number described a set of
commands together with their features and bugs, new features
causing a new version number.

If a shell script depends on uniq's "-W" feature, how can it
check for the right "coreutils" version, without actually
calling "uniq --help" and parse its output?

Heiner
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