+3.7.4.0 unreleased
+
+ * The base section has been removed. contrib and non-free have been
+ removed from the section list; they are only categories. The base
+ system is now defined by priority. [2.4, 3.7]
+ * If dpkg-source -x doesn't provide the source that will be compiled,
+ a debian/rules patch target is recommended and should do whatever
+ else is necessary. [4.9]
+ * Standardized the format of DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS. Specified permitted
+ characters for tags, required that tags be whitespace-separated,
+ allowed packages to assume non-conflicting tags, and required
+ unknown flags be ignored. [4.9.1, 10.1]
+ * Added parallel=n to the standardized DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS tags,
+ indicating that a package should be built using up to n parallel
+ processes if the package supports it [4.9.1]
+ * Debian packages should not use convience copies of code from other
+ packages unless the included package is explicitly intended to be
+ used that way. [4.13]
+ * If dpkg-source -x doesn't produce source ready for editing and
+ building with dpkg-buildpackage, packages should include a
+ debian/README.source file explaining how to generate the patched
+ source, add a new modification, and remove an existing
+ modification. This file may also be used to document packaging a
+ new upstream release and any other complexity of the Debian build
+ process. [4.14]
+ * The Uploaders field in debian/control may be wrapped. [5.6.3]
+ * New Homepage field for upstream web sites. [5.6.23]
+ * The Breaks field declares that this package breaks another and
+ prevents installation of the breaking package unless the package
+ named in Breaks is deconfigured first. This field should not be
+ used until the dpkg in Debian stable supports it. [6.5, 6.6, 7]
+ * Files in /etc/cron.{hourly,daily,weekly,monthly} must be
+ configuration files (upgraded from should). Mention the hourly
+ directory. [9.5]
+ * Manual pages in locale-specific directories should use either the
+ legacy encoding for that directory or UTF-8. Country names should
+ not be included in locale-specific manual page directories unless
+ indicating a significant difference in the language. All
+ characters in the manual page source should be representable in the
+ legacy encoding for a locale even if the man page is encoded in
+ UTF-8. [12.1]
+ * The Apache 2.0 license is now in common-licenses and should be
+ referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
+ * Packages in contrib and non-free should state in the copyright file
+ that the package is not part of Debian GNU/Linux and briefly
+ explain why. [12.5]
+
+3.7.3.0 Dec 2007
+
+ * Package version numbers may contain tildes, which sort before
+ anything, even the end of a part. [5.6.12]
+ * Scripts may assume that /bin/sh supports local (at a basic level)
+ and that its test builtin (if any) supports -a and -o binary
+ logical operators. [10.4]
+ * The substitution variable ${binary:Version} should be used in place
+ of ${Source-Version} for dependencies between packages of the same
+ library. [8.5]
+ * Substantial reorganization and renaming of sections in the Debian
+ menu structure. Packages with menu entries should be reviewed to
+ see if the menu section has been renamed or if one of the new
+ sections would be more appropriate. [menu policy]
+ * The Source field in a .changes file may contain a version number
+ in parentheses. [5.6.1]
+ * The acceptable values for the Urgency field are low, medium, high,
+ critical, or emergency. [5.6.17]
+ * The shlibs file now allows an optional type field, indicating the
+ type of package for which the line is valid. The only currently
+ supported type is udeb, used with packages for the Debian
+ Installer. [8.6]
+ * Packages following the Debian Configuration management
+ specification must allow for translation of their messages by using
+ a gettext-based system such as po-debconf. [3.9.1]
+ * GFDL 1.2, GPL 3, and LGPL 3 are now in common-licenses and should
+ be referenced rather than quoted in debian/copyright. [12.5]
+
+3.7.2.2 Oct 2006
+
+ * Maintainer scripts must not be world writeable (up from a
+ should to a must) [6.1]
+
+3.7.2.0 Apr 2006
+
+ * Revert the cgi-lib change. [11.5]
+
+3.7.1.0 Apr 2006
+
+ * It is now possible to create shared libraries without
+ relocatable code (using -fPIC) in certain exceptional cases,
+ provided some procedures are followed, and for creating static
+ libraries with relocatable code (again, using -fPIC).
+ Discussion on debian-devel@lists.debian.org, getting a rough
+ consensus, and documenting it in README.Debian constitute most
+ of the process. [10.2]
+ * Packages should install any relevant files into the directories
+ /usr/include/X11/and /usr/lib/X11/, but if they do so, they
+ must pre-depend on x11-common (>= 1:7.0.0) [11.8.7]
+
+3.7.0.0 Apr 2006
+
+ * Packages shipping web server CGI files are expected to install
+ them in /usr/lib/cgi-lib/ directories. This location change
+ perhaps should be documented in NEWS [11.5]
+ * Web server packages should include a standard scriptAlias of
+ cgi-lib to /usr/lib/cgi-lib. [11.5]
+ * The version of FHS mandated by policy has been upped to
+ 2.3. There should be no changes required for most packages,
+ though new top level directories /media, /srv, etc may be of
+ interest. [9.1.1]
+ * All fields, apart from the Uploaders field, in the control file
+ are supposed to be a single logical line, which may be spread
+ over multiple physical lines (newline followed by space is
+ elided). However, any parser for the control file must allow
+ the Uploaders field to be spread over multiple physical lines
+ as well, to prepare for future changes. [ 5.1, 5.6.3 ]
+ * When scripts are installed into a directory in the system
+ PATH, the script name should not include an extension that
+ denotes the scripting language currently used to implement it.
+ [ 10.4 ]
+ * packages that invoke initscripts now must use invoke-rc.d to do
+ so since it also pays attention to run levels and other local
+ constraints. [ 9.3.3.2 ]
+ * We no longer use /usr/X11R6, since we have migrated away to
+ using Xorg paths. This means, for one thing, fonts live in
+ /usr/share/fonts/X11/ now, and /usr/X11R6 is gone.
+ [ 11.8.5.2, 11.8.7, etc]
+
+3.6.2.0 2005
+
+ * Recommend doc-base, and not menu, for registering package documentation.
+ * Run time support programs should live in subdirectories of
+ /usr/lib/ or /usr/share, and preferably the shared lib is named
+ the same as the package name (to avoid name collisions). [8.1]
+ * It is recommended that HTTP servers provide an alias /images to
+ allow packages to share image files with the web server [11.5]
+
+3.6.1.0 Aug 2003
+
+ + Prompting the user should be done using debconf. Non debconf
+ user prompts are now deprecated. [3.10.1]
+
+3.6.0 Jul 2003
+
+ - Restructuring causing shifts in section numbers and bumping of
+ the minor version number:
+ + Many packaging manual appendices that were integrated into policy
+ sections are now empty, and replaced with links to the Policy.
+ In particular, the appendices that included the list of control
+ fields were updated (new fields like Closes, Changed-By were added)
+ and the list of fields for each of control, .changes and .dsc files
+ is now in Policy, and they're marked mandatory, recommended or
+ optional based on the current practice and the behavior of the
+ deb-building tool-chain.
+ + Elimination of needlessly deep section levels, primarily in the
+ chapter Debian Archive, from which two new chapters were split out,
+ Binary packages and Source packages. What remained was reordered
+ properly, that is, some sect1s became sects etc.
+ + Several sections that were redundant, crufty or simply not designed
+ with any sort of vision, were rearranged according to the formula that
+ everything should be either in the same place or properly interlinked.
+ Some things remained split up between different chapters when they
+ talked about different aspects of files: their content, their syntax,
+ and their placement in the file system. In particular, see the new
+ sections about changelog files.
+ - Added Games/Simulation and Apps/Education to menu sub-policy
+ [menu policy]
+ - Debian changelogs should be UTF-8 encoded. [C.2.2]
+ - shared libraries must be linked against all libraries that they
+ use symbols from in the same way that binaries are. [10.2]
+ - build-depends-indep need not be satisfied during clean
+ target. [7.6]
+
+3.5.10 May 2003