1 -*- mode: org; fill-column: 78 -*-
3 #+STARTUP: lognotedone lognotestate
6 #+AUTHOR: Manoj Srivastava And Russ Allbery
7 #+EMAIL: srivasta@debian.org
8 #+OPTIONS: H:3 num:nil toc:nil \n:nil @:t ::t |:t ^:t -:t f:t *:t TeX:t LaTeX:nil skip:t d:nil tags:not-in-toc
9 #+LINK_HOME: http://wiki.debian.org/Teams/Policy
10 #+LINK_UP: http://www.debian.org/
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37 + Website:: http://www.debian.org/doc/devel-manuals#policy
38 + Mailing list:: debian-policy@lists.debian.org lists
40 * git clone git://git.debian.org/git/dbnpolicy/policy.git
41 * Browser: http://git.debian.org/?p=dbnpolicy/policy.git
42 + Unix group:: dbnpolicy
43 + Alioth Project:: http://alioth.debian.org/projects/dbnpolicy (exists
44 to manage the repository but not otherwise used)
46 ** Interacting with the team
48 + Email contact:: mailto:debian-policy@lists.debian.org
49 + Request tracker:: http://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-policy
51 Debian Policy uses a formal procedure and a set of user tags to manage
52 the lifecycle of change proposals. For definitions of those tags and
53 proposal states and information about what the next step is for each
54 phase, see [[./Process.org][Policy changes process]].
56 Once the wording for a change has been finalized, please send a patch
57 against the current Git master branch to the bug report, if you're not
58 familiar with Git, the following commands are the basic process:
61 git clone git://git.debian.org/git/dbnpolicy/policy.git
62 git checkout -b <local-branch-name>
64 # edit files, but don't make changes to upgrading-checklist or debian/changelog
69 # update your branch against the current master
74 git merge --no-commit <local-branch-name>
75 git reset --hard HEAD;
76 git checkout <local-branch-name>;
78 # If there are changes in master that make the branch not apply cleanly, there
79 # should have been en error during the merge step above. If there was an
80 # error, merge the master branch into the local branch, fix the conflicts, and
81 # commit the new version of the local branch.
83 # Edit files to remove conflict
86 # Checkout the local branch, to create the patch to send to the policy
87 git checkout <local-branch-name>
89 git format-patch -o $dir -s master
90 # check out the patches created in $dir
91 git send-email --from "you <your@email>" \
92 --to debian-policy@lists.debian.org \
96 <local-branch-name> is some convenient name designating your local
97 changes. You may want to use some common prefix like local-. You can
98 use git format-patch and git send-email if you want, but usually it's
103 The Debian Policy team are official project delegates (see the DPL
104 delegation). All of the Policy team members do basically the same
105 work: shepherd proposals, propose wording, and merge changes when
106 consensus has been reached. The current delegates are:
108 + Andreas Barth (aba)
109 + Bill Allombert (ballombe)
110 + Charles Plessy (plessy)
115 The Debian Policy team is responsible for maintaining and coordinating
116 updates to the Debian Policy Manual and all the other policy documents
117 released as part of the "debian-policy" package.
119 The Debian Policy Editors:
121 + Guide the work on the Debian Policy Manual and related documents as a
122 collaborative process where developers review and second or object to
123 proposals, usually on the debian-policy mailing list.
125 + Count seconds and weight objections to proposals, to determine whether
126 they have reached sufficient consensus to be included, and accept
127 consensual proposals.
129 + Reject or refer to the Technical Committee proposals that fail to
132 + Commit changes to the version control system repository used to
133 maintain the Debian Policy Manual and related documents.
135 + Maintain the "debian-policy" package. As package maintainers, they
136 have the last word on package content, releases, bug reports, etc.
138 Everything else can be done by anyone, or any DD (depending on the
139 outcome of the discussion about seconding). We explicitly want any
140 Debian DD to review and second or object to proposals. The more
141 participation, the better. Many other people are active on the Policy
142 mailing list without being project delegates.
144 In addition to the main technical manual, the team currently also maintains:
146 + [[http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/][Machine-readable debian/copyright format]]
147 + [[http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/menu-policy/][Debian Menu sub-policy]]
148 + [[http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/perl-policy/][Debian Perl Policy]]
149 + [[http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/debconf_specification.html][Debconf Specification]]
150 + [[http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/virtual-package-names-list.txt][Authoritative list of virtual package names ]]
152 These documents are maintained using the [[./Process.org][Policy changes process]], and
153 the current state of all change proposals is tracked using the
154 [[http://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-policy][debian-policy BTS]].
158 The best way to help is to review the [[http://bugs.debian.org/src:debian-policy][current open bugs]], pick a bug
159 that no one is currently shepherding (ask on
160 [[mailto:debian-policy@lists.debian.org][debian-policy@lists.debian.org]] if you're not sure if a particular bug
161 is being shepherded), and help it through the change process. This
162 will involve guiding the discussion, seeking additional input
163 (particularly from experts in the area being discussed), possibly
164 raising the issue on other mailing lists, proposing or getting other
165 people to propose specific wording changes, and writing diffs against
166 the current Policy document. All of the steps of [[./Process.org][Policy changes process]]
167 can be done by people other than Policy team members except
168 the final acceptance steps and almost every change can be worked on
169 independently, so there's a lot of opportunity for people to help.
171 There are also some other, larger projects:
173 + Policy is currently maintained in DebianDoc-SGML, which is no longer
174 very actively maintained and isn't a widely used or understood
175 format. The most logical replacement would be DocBook. However,
176 DocBook is a huge language with many tags and options, making it
177 rather overwhelming. We badly need someone with DocBook experience
178 to write a style guide specifying exactly which tags should be used
179 and what they should be used for so that we can limit ourselves to
180 an easy-to-understand and documented subset of the language.
181 + Policy contains several appendices which are really documentation of
182 how parts of the dpkg system works rather than technical
183 Policy. Those appendices should be removed from the Policy document
184 and maintained elsewhere, probably as part of dpkg, and any Policy
185 statements in them moved into the main document. This project will
186 require reviewing the current contents of the appendices and feeding
187 the useful bits that aren't currently documented back to the dpkg
188 team as documentation patches.
189 + Policy has grown organically over the years and suffers from
190 organizational issues because of it. It also doesn't make use of the
191 abilities that a current XML language might give us, such as being
192 able to extract useful portions of the document (all *must*
193 directives, for example). There has been quite a bit of discussion
194 of a new format that would allow for this, probably as part of
195 switching to DocBook, but as yet such a reorganization and reworking
196 has not been started.
198 If you want to work on any of these projects, please mail
199 [[mailto:debian-policy@lists.debian.org][debian-policy@lists.debian.org ]] for more information. We'll be happy to
200 help you get started.
202 ** Maintenance procedures
206 The Git repository used for Debian Policy has the following branches:
208 + master:: the current accepted changes that will be in the next release
209 + bug<number>-<user>:: changes addressing bug <number>, shepherded by <user>
210 + rra:: old history of Russ's arch repository, now frozen
211 + srivasta:: old history of Manoj's arch repository
215 The process used by Policy team members to manage a bug, once there is
216 proposed wording, is:
218 + Create a bug<number>-<user> branch for the bug, where <number> is
219 the bug number in the BTS and <user> is a designator of the Policy
220 team member who is shepherding the bug.
221 + Commit wording changes in that branch until consensus is
222 achieved. Do not modify debian/changelog or upgrading-checklist.html
223 during this phase. Use the BTS to track who proposed the wording and
225 + git pull master to make sure you have the latest version.
226 + Once the change has been approved by enough people, git merge the
227 branch into master immediately after making the final commit adding
228 the changelog entry to minimize conflicts.
229 + add the debian/changelog and upgrading-checklist.html changes, and
231 + Push master out so other people may merge in their own bug branches
233 + Tag the bug as pending and remove other process tags.
234 + Delete the now-merged branch.
236 The Git commands used for this workflow are:
238 git checkout -b bug12345-rra master
242 git push origin bug12345-rra
244 # update your local master branch
249 git merge --no-commit bug12345-rra
250 git reset --hard HEAD;
252 # If there are changes in master that make the branch not apply cleanly, there
253 # should have been en error during the merge step above. If there was an
254 # error, merge the master branch into the local branch, fix the conflicts, and
255 # commit the new version of the local branch.
256 : git checkout bug12345-rra
258 # Edit files to remove conflict
262 git merge bug12345-rra
263 # edit debian/changelog and upgrading-checklist.html
264 git add debian/changelog upgrading-checklist.html
266 git push origin master
267 git branch -d bug12345-rra
268 git push origin :bug12345-rra
271 For the debian/changelog entry, use the following format:
273 * <document>: <brief change description>
274 Wording: <author of wording>
277 Closes: <bug numbers>
282 * Policy: better document version ranking and empty Debian revisions
283 Wording: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
284 Seconded: Raphaƫl Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
285 Seconded: Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org>
286 Seconded: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
287 Closes: #186700, #458910
292 After commits to master have been pushed, either by you or by another
293 Policy team member, you will generally want to update your working bug
294 branches. The equivalent of the following commands should do that:
297 for i in `git show-ref --heads | awk '{print $2}'`; do
299 if [ "$j" != "master" ]; then
300 git checkout $j && git merge master
303 git push --all origin
306 assuming that you haven't packed the refs in your repository.
310 For a final Policy release, change UNRELEASED to unstable in
311 debian/changelog and update the timestamp to match the final release
312 time (dch -r may be helpful for this), update the release date in
313 upgrading-checklist.html, update Standards-Version in debian/control,
314 and commit that change. Then do the final release build and make sure
315 that it builds and installs.
317 Then, tag the repository and push the final changes to Alioth:
322 git push --tags origin
325 replacing the version number with the version of the release, of course.
327 Finally, announce the new Policy release on debian-devel-announce,
328 including in the announcement the upgrading-checklist section for the
331 ** Setting release goals
333 Policy has a large bug backlog, and each bug against Policy tends to
334 take considerable time and discussion to resolve. I've found it
335 useful, when trying to find a place to start, to pick a manageable set
336 of bugs and set as a target resolving them completely before the next
337 Policy release. Resolving a bug means one of the following:
339 + Proposing new language to address the bug that's seconded and approved by
340 the readers of the Policy list following the [[./Progress.org][Policy changes process]] (or
341 that's accepted by one of the Policy delegates if the change isn't
342 normative; i.e., doesn't change the technical meaning of the document).
343 + Determining that the bug is not relevant to Policy and closing it.
344 + Determining that either there is no consensus that the bug indicates
345 a problem, that the solutions that we can currently come up with are
346 good solutions, or that Debian is ready for the change. These bugs
347 are tagged wontfix and then closed after a while. A lot of Policy
348 bugs fall into this category; just because it would be useful to
349 have a policy in some area doesn't mean that we're ready to make
350 one, and keeping the bugs open against Policy makes it difficult to
351 tell what requires work. If the problem is worth writing a policy
352 for, it will come up again later when hopefully the project
353 consensus is more mature.
355 Anyone can pick bugs and work resolve them. The final determination to
356 accept a wording change or reject a bug will be made by a Policy
357 delegate, but if a patch is already written and seconded, or if a
358 summary of why a bug is not ready to be acted on is already written,
359 the work is much easier for the Policy delegate.
361 One of the best ways to help out is to pick one or two bugs (checking
362 on the Policy list first), say that you'll make resolving them a goal
363 for the next release, and guide the discussion until the bugs can
364 reach one of the resolution states above.