<item>
must not require a package outside of <em>main</em>
for compilation or execution (thus, the package must
- not declare a <tt>Pre-Depends</tt>, <tt>Depends</tt>,
- <tt>Recommends</tt>, <tt>Build-Depends</tt>,
- or <tt>Build-Depends-Indep</tt> relationship on a
- non-<em>main</em> package unless a package
- in <em>main</em> is listed as an alternative),
+ not declare a "Depends", "Recommends", or
+ "Build-Depends" relationship on a non-<em>main</em>
+ package),
</item>
<item>
must not be so buggy that we refuse to support them,
<p>
In general, Debian packages should use the same version
- numbers as the upstream sources.
- </p>
-
- <p>
- However, in some cases where the upstream version number is
- based on a date (e.g., a development "snapshot" release) the
- package management system cannot handle these version
- numbers without epochs. For example, dpkg will consider
- "96May01" to be greater than "96Dec24".
+ numbers as the upstream sources. However, upstream version
+ numbers based on some date formats (sometimes used for
+ development or "snapshot" releases) will not be ordered
+ correctly by the package management software. For
+ example, <prng>dpkg</prng> will consider "96May01" to be
+ greater than "96Dec24".
</p>
<p>
To prevent having to use epochs for every new upstream
- version, the date based portion of the version number
- should be changed to the following format in such cases:
- "19960501", "19961224". It is up to the maintainer whether
- they want to bother the upstream maintainer to change
- the version numbers upstream, too.
+ version, the date-based portion of any upstream version number
+ should be given in a way that sorts correctly: four-digit year
+ first, followed by a two-digit numeric month, followed by a
+ two-digit numeric date, possibly with punctuation between the
+ components.
</p>
<p>
- Note that other version formats based on dates which are
- parsed correctly by the package management system should
- <em>not</em> be changed.
- </p>
-
- <p>
- Native Debian packages (i.e., packages which have been
- written especially for Debian) whose version numbers include
- dates should always use the "YYYYMMDD" format.
+ Native Debian packages (i.e., packages which have been written
+ especially for Debian) whose version numbers include dates
+ should also follow these rules. If punctuation is desired
+ between the date components, remember that hyphen (<tt>-</tt>)
+ cannot be used in native package versions. Period
+ (<tt>.</tt>) is normally a good choice.
</p>
</sect1>
</sect>
- <sect>
+ <sect id="maintainer">
<heading>The maintainer of a package</heading>
<p>
- Every package must have a Debian maintainer (the
- maintainer may be one person or a group of people
- reachable from a common email address, such as a mailing
- list). The maintainer is responsible for ensuring that
- the package is placed in the appropriate distributions.
- </p>
-
- <p>
- The maintainer must be specified in the
- <tt>Maintainer</tt> control field with their correct name
- and a working email address. If one person maintains
- several packages, they should try to avoid having
- different forms of their name and email address in
+ Every package must have a maintainer. The maintainer may be one
+ person or a group of people reachable from a common email
+ address, such as a mailing list. The maintainer is responsible
+ for maintaining the Debian packaging files, evaluating and
+ responding appropriately to reported bugs, uploading new
+ versions of the package (either directly or through a sponsor),
+ ensuring that the package is placed in the appropriate archive
+ area and included in Debian releases as appropriate for the
+ stability and utility of the package, and requesting removal of
+ the package from the Debian distribution if it is no longer
+ useful or maintainable.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ The maintainer must be specified in the <tt>Maintainer</tt>
+ control field with their correct name and a working email
+ address. The email address given in the <tt>Maintainer</tt>
+ control field must accept mail from those role accounts in
+ Debian used to send automated mails regarding the package. This
+ includes non-spam mail from the bug-tracking system, all mail
+ from the Debian archive maintenance software, and other role
+ accounts or automated processes that are commonly agreed on by
+ the project.<footnote>
+ A sample implementation of such a whitelist written for the
+ Mailman mailing list management software is used for mailing
+ lists hosted by alioth.debian.org.
+ </footnote>
+ If one person or team maintains several packages, they should
+ use the same form of their name and email address in
the <tt>Maintainer</tt> fields of those packages.
</p>
</p>
<p>
- If the maintainer of a package quits from the Debian
- project, "Debian QA Group"
- <email>packages@qa.debian.org</email> takes over the
- maintainer-ship of the package until someone else
- volunteers for that task. These packages are called
- <em>orphaned packages</em>.<footnote>
- The detailed procedure for doing this gracefully can
- be found in the Debian Developer's Reference,
- see <ref id="related">.
- </footnote>
+ If the maintainer of the package is a team of people with a
+ shared email address, the <tt>Uploaders</tt> control field must
+ be present and must contain at least one human with their
+ personal email address. See <ref id="f-Uploaders"> for the
+ syntax of that field.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ If the maintainer of a package no longer has time or desire to
+ maintain a package, it will be orphaned according to the
+ procedure described in the Debian Developer's Reference
+ (see <ref id="related">). The maintainer then
+ becomes <tt>Debian QA Group <packages@qa.debian.org></tt>.
+ These packages are considered maintained by the Debian project
+ as a whole until someone else volunteers to take over
+ maintenance.
</p>
</sect>
putting the name in round brackets and moving it to the
end, and bringing the email address forward).
</p>
+
+ <p>
+ See <ref id="maintainer"> for additional requirements and
+ information about package maintainers.
+ </p>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="f-Uploaders">
<heading><tt>Uploaders</tt></heading>
<p>
- List of the names and email addresses of co-maintainers of
- the package, if any. If the package has other maintainers
- beside the one named in the
- <qref id="f-Maintainer">Maintainer field</qref>, their names
- and email addresses should be listed here. The format of each
- entry is the same as that of the Maintainer field, and
- multiple entries must be comma separated. This is an optional
- field.
+ List of the names and email addresses of co-maintainers of the
+ package, if any. If the package has other maintainers besides
+ the one named in the <qref id="f-Maintainer">Maintainer
+ field</qref>, their names and email addresses should be listed
+ here. The format of each entry is the same as that of the
+ Maintainer field, and multiple entries must be comma
+ separated.
+ </p>
+
+ <p>
+ This is normally an optional field, but if
+ the <tt>Maintainer</tt> control field names a group of people
+ and a shared email address, the <tt>Uploaders</tt> field must
+ be present and must contain at least one human with their
+ personal email address.
</p>
<p>
example, <ref id="binaries">.
</p>
+ <p>
+ Neither <tt>Breaks</tt> nor <tt>Conflicts</tt> should be used
+ unless two packages cannot be installed at the same time or
+ installing them both causes one of them to be broken or
+ unusable. Having similar functionality or performing the same
+ tasks as another package is not sufficient reason to
+ declare <tt>Breaks</tt> or <tt>Conflicts</tt> with that package.
+ </p>
+
<p>
A <tt>Conflicts</tt> entry may have an "earlier than" version
clause if the reason for the conflict is corrected in a later
<p>
There is no Build-Depends-Arch; this role is essentially
met with Build-Depends. Anyone building the
- <tt>build-indep</tt> and binary-indep<tt></tt> targets is
+ <tt>build-indep</tt> and <tt>binary-indep</tt> targets is
assumed to be building the whole package, and therefore
installation of all build dependencies is required.
</p>
<example compact="compact">
/usr/lib/cgi-bin/<var>cgi-bin-name</var>
</example>
- and should be referred to as
+ or a subdirectory of that directory, and should be
+ referred to as
<example compact="compact">
http://localhost/cgi-bin/<var>cgi-bin-name</var>
</example>
-
+ (possibly with a subdirectory name
+ before <var>cgi-bin-name</var>).
</item>
<item>
projects / debian / debian-policy.git / blobdiff