Hello everyone,
After rather too long of a hiatus, Debian Policy 4.0.0.0 has been uploaded
to Debian *experimental*. It's in experimental for two reasons:
* Policy 4.0.0.0 is not targeted for Debian stretch. We're getting ready
for the start of the buster development cycle. Please don't prioritize
updating your packages until stretch is released. Please don't include
Standards-Version changes in your uploads targeted for stretch.
* This release finally converts Policy from DebianDoc-SGML to DocBook.
Many thanks to Osamu Aoki and Guillem Jover for their hard work on this
conversion. This is a significant change with downstream impact on all
the rendered versions. There will be bugs and formatting problems, and
there will be unexpected impact on downstream consumers of Policy. It
will take a bit to sort those out.
I expect there to be a few more point-release changes to packaging and
formatting uploaded to experimental before uploading to unstable for the
start of the buster development cycle. (I've indeed already noticed about
six minor bugs, including the missing release date in the upgrading
checklist....)
Due to the DocBook conversion, and the resources rightly devoted to the
stretch release instead, it may be a bit before the new Policy version
shows up properly in all the places it's published.
Here are the changes from the previous announced version of Policy
(3.9.7):
A.2. Version 4.0.0
May, 2017
4.3
config.sub and config.guess should be updated at build time or
replaced with the versions from autotools-dev.
4.9
New TARGET set of dpkg-architecture variables and new
DEB_*_ARCH_BITS and DEB_*_ARCH_ENDIAN variables.
4.9.1
New DEB_BUILD_OPTIONS tag, nodoc, which says to suppress
documentation generation (but continue to build all binary
packages, even documentation packages, just let them be mostly
empty).
5.2
Automatically-generated debug packages do not need to have a
corresponding paragraph in debian/control. (This is existing
practice; this Policy update is just clearer about it.)
5.6.12
Colons are not permitted in upstream version numbers.
7.7
New Build-Depends-Arch and Build-Conflicts-Arch fields are now
supported.
8.4
The recommended package name for shared library development files
is now libraryname-dev or librarynameapiversion-dev, not
librarynamesoversion-dev.
9.1.1
The stable release of Debian supports /run, so packages may now
assume that it exists and do not need any special dependency on a
version of initscripts.
9.3.2
New optional try-restart standard init script argument, which (if
supported) should restart the service if it is already running and
otherwise just report success.
9.3.2
Support for the status init script argument is recommended.
9.3.3.2
Packages must not call /etc/init.d scripts directly even as a
fallback, and instead must always use invoke-rc.d (which is
essential and shouldn't require any conditional).
9.11.1
Instructions for upstart integration removed since upstart is no
longer maintained in Debian.
10.1
Packages may not install files in both path and /usr/path and
manage any backward-compatibility symlinks so that they don't
break if path and /usr/path are the same directory.
10.6
Packages should assume device files in /dev are dynamically
managed and don't have to be created by the package. Packages
other than those whose purpose is to manage /dev must not create
or remove files there when a dynamic management facility is in
use. Named pipes and device files outside of /dev should normally
be created on demand via init scripts, systemd units, or similar
mechanisms, but may be created and removed in maintainer scripts
if the must be created during package installation.
10.9
Checking with the base-passwd maintainer is no longer required (or
desirable) when creating a new dynamic user or group in a package.
12.3
Dependencies on *-doc packages should be at most Recommends
(Suggests if they only include documentation in supplemental
formats).
12.5
The Mozilla Public License 1.1 and 2.0 (MPL-1.1 and MPL-2.0) are
now included in /usr/share/common-licenses and do not need to be
copied verbatim in the package copyright file.
copyright-format
The https form of the copyright-format URL is now allowed and
preferred in the Format field.
perl
The Perl search path now includes multiarch directories. The
vendor directory for architecture-specific modules is now
versioned to support multiarch.
virtual
New adventure virtual package for implementations of the classic
Colossal Cave Adventure game.
virtual
New httpd-wsgi3 virtual package for Python 3 WSGI-capable HTTP
servers. The existing httpd-wsgi virtual package is for Python 2
WSGI-capable HTTP servers.
virtual
New virtual-mysql-client, virtual-mysql-client-core,
virtual-mysql-server, virtual-mysql-server-core, and
virtual-mysql-testsuite virtual packages for MySQL-compatible
software.
A.3. Version 3.9.8
Released April, 2016.
9.6
The menu system is deprecated in favor of the FreeDesktop menu
standard. New requirements set for FreeDesktop menu entries.
9.7
New instructions for registering media type handlers with the
FreeDesktop system, which automatically synchronizes with mailcap
and therefore replaces mailcap registration for packages using
desktop entries.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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