+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
+
+ - packages providing the x-terminal-emulator virtual package
+ ought to ensure that they interpret the command line exactly
+ like xterm does. [11.8.3]
+ - Window managers compliant with the Window Manager Specification
+ Project may add 40 points for ranking in the alternatives [11.8.4]
+
+3.5.9.0 Mar 2003
+
+ - The section describing the Description: package field once again has
+ full details of the long description format. [3.4.2]
+ - Clarified that if a package has non-build-essential
+ build-dependencies, it should have them listed in the Build-Depends
+ and related fields (i.e. it's not merely optional). [4.2]
+ - When asked to restart a service that isn't already running,
+ the init script should start the service. [9.3.2]
+ - If the purpose of a package is to provide examples, then the
+ example files can be installed into <tt>/usr/share/doc/package</tt>
+ (rather than <tt>/usr/share/doc/package/examples</tt>). [12.6]
+
+3.5.8.0 Nov 2002
+
+ - It is no longer necessary to keep a log of changes to the upstream
+ sources in the copyright file. Instead, all such changes should be
+ documented in the changelog file. [12.7]
+ - <tt>Build-Depends</tt>, <tt>Build-Conflicts</tt>,
+ <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt>, and
+ <tt>Build-Conflicts-Indep</tt> must also be satisfied when the
+ clean target is called. [7.6]
+ - A new Apps/Science menu section is available [menu policy]
+ - debconf specification cleared up, various changes. [debconf
+ policy]
+ - It is no longer recommended to create symlinks from nonexistent
+ manual pages to undocumented(7). Missing manual pages for programs
+ are still a bug. [12.1]
+
+3.5.7.0 Aug 2002
+
+ - Packages no longer have to ask permission to call MAKEDEV in
+ postinst, merely notifying the user ought to be enough. [10.6]
+ - cryptographic software may now be included in the main
+ archive. [2.2.4]
+ - task packages are no longer permitted; tasks are now created by a
+ special Tasks: field in the control file. [3.9]
+ - window managers that support netwm can now add 20 points when
+ they add themselves as an alternative for
+ /usr/bin/x-window-manager [11.8.4]
+ - The default compilation options have now changed, one should
+ provide debugging symbols in all cases, and optionally step
+ back optimization to -O0, depending on the DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS
+ environment variable. [10.1]
+ - Added mention of build-arch, build-indep, etc, in describing
+ the relationships with `Build-Depends', `Build-Conflicts',
+ `Build-Depends-Indep', and `Build-Conflicts-Indep'. May need to
+ review the new rules. [7.6, 4.8]
+ - Changed rules on how, and when, to invoke ldconfig in maintainer
+ scripts. Long rationale. [8]
+ - [Added the last note in 3.5.6 upgrading checklist item regarding
+ build rules, please see below]
+
+3.5.6.0 Jul 2001
+
+ - Emacs and TeX are no longer mandated by policy to be priority
+ standard packages [2.5]
+ - Programs that access docs need to do so via /usr/share/doc, and
+ not via /usr/doc/ as was the policy previously [11.5]
+ - Putting documentation in /usr/doc versus /usr/share/doc is now
+ a ``serious'' policy violation. [12.3]
+ - For web servers, one should not provide non-local access to the
+ /usr/share/doc hierarchy. If one can't provide access controls for
+ the http://localhost/doc/ directory, then it is preferred that one
+ ask permission to expose that information during the install. [11.5]
+ - There are new rules for build-indep/build-arch targets and
+ there is a new Build-Depend-Indep semantic. [7]
+
+3.5.5.0 May 2001
+
+ - Manpages should not rely on header information to have
+ alternative manpage names available; it should only use
+ symlinks or .so pages to do this [12.1]
+ - [Clarified note in 3.5.3.0 upgrading checklist regarding
+ examples and templates: this refers only to those examples used
+ by scripts; see section 10.7.3 for the whole story]
+ - Included a new section 10.9.1 describing the use of
+ dpkg-statoverride; this does not have the weight of policy
+ - Clarify Standards-Version: you don't need to rebuild your
+ packages just to change the Standards-Version!
+ - Plugins are no longer bound by all the rules of shared
+ libraries [10.2]
+ - X Windows related things:
+ * Clarification of priority levels of X Window System related
+ packages [11.8.1]
+ * Rules for defining x-terminal-emulator improved [11.8.3]
+ * X Font policy rewritten: you must read this if you provide
+ fonts for the X Window System [11.8.5]
+ * Packages must not ship /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/ [11.8.6]
+ * X-related packages should usually use the regular FHS
+ locations; imake-using packages are exempted from this [11.8.7]
+ * OpenMotif linked binaries have the same rules as
+ OSF/Motif-linked ones [11.8.8]
+
+3.5.4.0 Apr 2001
+
+ - The system-wide mail directory is now /var/mail, no longer
+ /var/spool/mail. Any packages accessing the mail spool should
+ access it via /var/mail and include a suitable Depends field;
+ details in [11.6]
+ - The perl policy is now part of Debian policy proper. Perl
+ programs and modules should follow the current Perl policy
+ [11.9; perl-policy]
+
+3.5.3.0 Apr 2001
+