Russ Allbery [Sun, 1 Mar 2009 06:05:22 +0000 (22:05 -0800)]
debian/control files may contain comment lines
Document the debian/control comment syntax of lines starting with #,
including their behavior with multiline fields. Based on wording by
Julien Cristau <jcristau@debian.org>.
Russ Allbery [Mon, 2 Feb 2009 05:30:28 +0000 (21:30 -0800)]
Fully qualify all the menu sections in the menu policy
* Include the full name of each menu category rather than only the
portion relative to the parent heading to be clearer in long category
lists. Thanks, Christoph Berg. (Closes: #511804)
Russ Allbery [Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:11:56 +0000 (15:11 -0800)]
Clarify handling of architecture restrictions in dependencies
Add an explanation of the example and an additional example and
explanation for handling of architecture restrictions within alternatives.
Thanks, Guillem Jover. (Closes: #163666)
Russ Allbery [Thu, 6 Nov 2008 21:05:57 +0000 (13:05 -0800)]
Adjust copyright extraction command for new tar behavior
* Add --wildcards to the sample tar command in appendix B.1 for
extracting the package copyright file, adjusting for new tar option
behavior. Thanks, Yan Morin. (Closes: #503685)
Russ Allbery [Sun, 3 Aug 2008 21:34:59 +0000 (14:34 -0700)]
Clarify debconf translation requirement and capitalization
Clarify that translation is only required for user-visible debconf
messages. Capitalize "Debian Configuration Management Specification"
uniformly. Thanks, Julian Andres Klode. (Closes: #492624)
Fix a spelling error and try to provide more concrete guidance around
local system administrator configuration. Thanks to Josip Rodin for
the wording review.
When the diversion was added in a particular version of a package,
an aborted upgrade to a newer version with the diversion from an
older version without the diversion should remove the diversion when
rolling back to the older version. Add the necessary postrm code and
explanation. Thanks to Raphael Hertzog for the review.
Category is a term used only in the Policy manual. dak uses component
and the Social Contract uses area. Change the terminology to distribution
area everywhere and add a footnote explaining that dak also uses
component.
Tighten changelog format requirements and remove alternate formats
Tighten several changelog format requirements to a must and remove
the provision for alternative changelog formats, since the latter
is not permitted in the Debian archive.
Most mail systems these days do the mail delivery as the destination
user and for those systems the principal of least privilege indicates
that mailboxes should be mode 600. Permit either permission scheme
and document the intent of both schemes in a footnote.
Clarify handling of diversions in maintainer scripts
Suggest running dpkg-divert unconditionally in the preinst to also
catch cases of upgrading a package from a version before the diversion
was added. Suggest an alternate form that doesn't re-add the diversion
when unnecessary on upgrades.
In the postrm example, remove the diversion in more cases and document
why it should not be removed on upgrades.
Clarify the definition and restrictions on Essential
Add a brief rationale for Essential to the section on Essential, moving
it from an earlier footnote. Say that maintainers should take care in
adding any functionality to essential packages because it's very
difficult to remove such functionality later, moving some additional
text from the earlier footnote.
local must support multiple variables and assignment
All Bourne-type shells in Debian support localizing multiple variables
in one command, and all except posh support assignment. Supporting
multiple variables and assignment brings the behavior of local in line
with export and readonly. Permit /bin/sh scripts to assume that local
can take multiple variables and assignment.
Russ Allbery [Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:50:45 +0000 (14:50 -0700)]
Use <user>:<group> instead of <user>.<group>
Use the newer <user>:<group> notation rather than <user>.<group>, which
is ambiguous for usernames containing periods and deprecated in chown.
Thanks to Kurt Roeckx for identifying instances in the Policy manual.
Russ Allbery [Thu, 5 Jun 2008 20:13:43 +0000 (13:13 -0700)]
Don't attempt to register debian-policy-process
There were stray calls to register debian-policy-process in the postinst
and prerm scripts left behind when that document was removed. Remove
them as well.
Russ Allbery [Mon, 2 Jun 2008 20:58:48 +0000 (13:58 -0700)]
Policy: minor typos in dpkg-shlibdeps and dpkg-architecture
Fix minor typos in appendix C in the sections on dpkg-shlibdeps and
dpkg-architecture. Also remove the note that future versions of
dpkg-shlibdeps will be called on shared libraries as well and just
say that it acts on both executables and shared libraries.
Thanks to Sandro Tosi <matrixhasu@gmail.com> for the corrections. Closes: #481954
Russ Allbery [Mon, 2 Jun 2008 20:05:07 +0000 (13:05 -0700)]
Policy: bugs fixed in NMUs are now closed
Remove the reference to the fixed tag and describe NMU and regular
package uploads the same. Both close the bug using the version of
the changelog entry.
Thanks to Sandro Tosi for the report. Closes: #481640
Russ Allbery [Mon, 2 Jun 2008 19:51:32 +0000 (12:51 -0700)]
Policy: remove obsolete app-defaults and Xresources provisions
No longer require packages providing files in /etc/X11/Xresources to
conflict with an ancient version of xbase which is no longer even in
oldstable.
Drop the explicit prohibition on /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults,
which is no longer used by Debian at all and already covered by the
rest of the paragraph.
Remove old ChangeLog files. They haven't been updated and the VCS now
records more and better history. Remove headers from debian/postinst.in,
debian/prerm.in, and debian/rules as now redundant with the VCS metadata.
Document that an empty Debian revision is equivalent to a Debian
revision of 0 and clarify the way version numbers are compared. Thanks
to Raphael Hertzog for information about what dpkg does.
Clarify support file handling for shared libraries
Combine the discussion of run-time support files for shared libraries
in a renamed section. Be explicit that shared library packages may not
contain any file whose name does not change when the soname changes,
and be clearer about when files should be put into versioned directories
in the shared library package and when files should go into a separate
package. Files useful only when compiling against the library should
go into the -devel package (and other run-time support programs should
not).
Suggest -tools instead of -runtime for the package containing support
files or binaries built against a library and usable by any version of
the library. Thanks, Raphael Hertzog.
Underscores are already widely used in debconf template names, even though
not allowed by the specification, and both debconf and cdebconf permit
them. Patch from Colin Watson. (Bug#473761)
Reference deb-substvars for source variable substitutions
As of dpkg 1.14.3, source variable substitutions are now documented in
deb-substvars(5) rather than dpkg-source(1). Update the reference in
Policy. Patch from Ian Beckwith.
Russ Allbery [Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:06:34 +0000 (22:06 +0000)]
Clarify mandatory config files in /etc
Add the /etc/cron.hourly directory to the list of cron directories.
/etc/cron.* files now must be configuration files (upgraded from
should). Mention the various scripts that must be configuration files
in the section about configuration files. Thanks, Frank Küster.
Closes #403391.
Russ Allbery [Sun, 16 Mar 2008 21:08:56 +0000 (21:08 +0000)]
Add README.source and the patch target
Specifies the debian/README.source file to document any package that
uses a source or package management system or that has a complex source
layout or build system. Specifies and recommends the patch target
for putting a source package into an editable state. Allowed referring
to external documentation in README.source if it's specific and not a
general manual.
Russ Allbery [Sun, 16 Mar 2008 20:43:55 +0000 (20:43 +0000)]
Add parallel=n and move DEB_BUILD_OPTS section
Add the build option parallel=n, requesting a parallel build. Standardize
the format of DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS, require tags be whitespace-separated,
allow packages to assume non-conflicting tags, and require unknown flags
be ignored. Move the section documenting DEB_BUILD_OPTS under the
debian/rules section and away from the binaries section, leaving a
cross-reference behind. Thanks to Loïc Minier, Peter Samuelson,
Robert Millan, and Guillem Jover for wording suggestions.
Russ Allbery [Sun, 16 Mar 2008 19:45:52 +0000 (19:45 +0000)]
non-free and contrib packages should explain in copyright
Packages in the non-free and contrib categories should state in their
copyright files that the package is not part of the Debian GNU/Linux
distribution and briefly explain why.