Re: base-files changed /etc/debian_version in stable

[Santiago Vila <sanvila@unex.es>]

On Tue, 14 Apr 2009, Josselin Mouette wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> the point release of lenny contains a change to /etc/debian_version.
> This was done without any kind of warning, despite the fact that some
> packages rely on the contents of this file.

This change was also a surprise to me. I knew that the idea was
floating around in the release team, but I didn't expect them to
implement it one day before the point release.

In either case, the genie is now out of the bottle.

The file /etc/debian_version for lenny will contain, from now on,
a string of the form 5.0.n where n is an integer number.

If this causes breakage, let us fix such breakage then.

I can only assume that the release team, since they decided about this
change in base-files, will reasonably also allow uploads for stable of
packages that are broken because of this, even if they are not security
fixes in strict sense.

BTW: In my opinion, packages relying on /etc/debian_version should
better be modified so that they do not depend on /etc/debian_version.

Thanks.