Re: Splitting a package
On Sun, Jan 12, 2014 at 03:54:12PM +0100, Ol?? Streicher wrote:
> Arno Töll <arno@debian.org> writes:
> > Please use Replaces in conjunction with Breaks (not Conflicts). See
> > Policy §7.6.1 which explains your use case:
> > http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html#s-replaces
>
> Thank you. I should have read it.
> How long should one carry this relation? Forever?
> (Once the new package is in testing, the old package is not available
> anymore).
You need to carry such headers long enough to support all of the
following upgrades:
* oldstable -> stable
* stable -> testing
* testing -> unstable
Specifically you do not have to care about oldstable -> testing or later
oldoldstable -> stable, but you may support skipping a release if you so
wish.
Since your package has never seen stable, that means you can indeed drop
those headers after your updated package reaches testing. I suggest
giving the headers at least half a year, because some users skip
upgrades from testing (not following it closely) and can needlessly run
into your issue later if you dropped them early. Also consider
popularity of your package here, for popular packages keeping those
headers longer usually cuts down in useless bug reports.
Helmut
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