Steinar H. Gunderson wrote on 09/07/2007 16:57: > On Mon, Jul 09, 2007 at 04:48:05PM +0200, Bruno Costacurta wrote: >> Hello, >> what is the policy about file debian/compat ? > > It's a part of the interface to debhelper, and as such is documented in the > debhelper documentation. True. >> I was not able to find any policy about it in 'Debian Policy Manual' on >> debian.org. It seems it should contain package version mentionned in >> field 'Build-depends:' in debian/control for building from source package ? > > Debian policy does not describe or discuss debhelper; you can build packages > just fine without it. (It isn't very common, though, but some prefer it.) Also true, but as I frequently need to backport packages to (old)stable, I would really like people only to increase the debhelper compat level if they really _use_ new features in the new level. While I backported packages to sarge during the etch release cycle, I frequently (i.e. I can't remember a package where it wasn't like this) all I needed to do to make a package compile cleanly on sarge was to decrease the compat level back to 4. So specifying 5 there was utterly useless in the first place. Just because debhelper supports a new compat level doesn't necessarily mean you should depend on that. Unless, of course, you actually rely on some effect of that new compat level during your build. regards, Sven
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