Debian Policy 3.9.1.0 has been released. The next time you upload your
packages, please review them against the upgrading checklist in the
debian-policy package and see if they require changes for the new version
of Policy.
Lintian 2.4.3, which has been updated for this release of Policy, has also
just been uploaded.
Here are the primary changes in the new version, marked with the Policy
section that was changed:
3.2.1
Date-based version components should be given as the four-digit
year, two-digit month, and then two-digit day, but may have
embedded punctuation.
3.9
Maintainer scripts must pass `--package' to `dpkg-divert' when
creating or removing diversions and must not use `--local'.
4.10
Only `dpkg-gencontrol' supports variable substitution.
`dpkg-genchanges' (for `*.changes') and `dpkg-source' (for
`*.dsc') do not.
7.1
Architecture restrictions and wildcards are also allowed in
binary package relationships provided that the binary package is
not architecture-independent.
7.4
`Conflicts' and `Breaks' should only be used when there are file
conflicts or one package breaks the other, not just because two
packages provide similar functionality but don't interfere.
8.1
The SONAME of a library should change whenever the ABI of the
library changes in a way that isn't backward-compatible. It
should not change if the library ABI changes are
backward-compatible. Discourage bundling shared libraries
together in one package.
8.4
Ada Library Information (`*.ali') files must be installed
read-only.
8.6.1, 8.6.2, 8.6.5
Packages should normally not include a `shlibs.local' file since
we now have complete `shlibs' coverage.
8.6.3
The SONAME of a library may instead be of the form
`<name>-<major-version>.so'.
10.2
Libtool `.la' files should not be installed for public libraries.
If they're required (for `libltdl', for instance), the
`dependency_libs' setting should be emptied. Library packages
historically including `.la' files must continue to include them
(with `dependency_libs' emptied) until all libraries that depend
on that library have removed or emptied their `.la' files.
10.2
Libraries no longer need to be built with `-D_REENTRANT', which
was an obsolete LinuxThreads requirement. Instead, say
explicitly that libraries should be built with threading support
and to be thread-safe if the library supports this.
10.4
`/bin/sh' scripts may assume that `kill' supports an argument of
`-<signal>', that `kill' and `trap' support the numeric signals
listed in the XSI extension, and that signal 13 (SIGPIPE) can be
trapped with `trap'.
10.8
Recommend `/etc/logrotate.d/<package>' for logrotate rules.
10.9
Control information files should be owned by `root:root' and
either mode 644 or mode 755.
11.4, 11.8.3, 11.8.4
Packages providing alternatives for `editor', `pager',
`x-terminal-emulator', or `x-window-manager' should also provide
a slave alternative for the corresponding manual page.
11.5
Cgi-bin executable files may be installed in subdirectories of
`/usr/lib/cgi-bin' and web servers should serve out executables
in those subdirectories.
12.5
The GPL version 1 is now included in common-licenses and should
be referenced from there instead of included in the `copyright'
file.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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