Hi,
Your email sounds a bit harsh... I think Fedora is doing a great job
at packaging xfce! [1]
The "xfce4-about" is just a simple tool provided with the libxfce4ui
package, but it actually takes the version from
`xfce_version_string()` which is defined in libxfce4util.
And it happens that upstream still has that string set to "4.12",
better file a bug upstream, but calling it a "useless piece of code"
is unlikely to give you the traction you ask for.
As for the package list you posted, xfce is made of different modules
which have different versions, not all packages follow the same
scheme. Actually, 4.13.x is 4.14-pre-something, so it looks to me you
do have a pre-version of 4.14 installed. Of course, one important
piece of the puzzle (xfwm4) is missing in your list because you
queried "xfce*" which excludes xfwm4...
Cheers,
Olivier
[1] Granted, I am biased.