Bug#761219: debian-policy: document versioned Provides
On Fri, Mar 13, 2015 at 05:38:39PM -0300, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> On Fri, 13 Mar 2015, David Prévot wrote:
> > On Thu, Sep 11, 2014 at 09:57:57PM +0300, Niko Tyni wrote:
> > > dpkg 1.17.11 and apt 1.0.7 recently implemented support for versioned
> > > provides.
> > […]
> > > This clearly needs an update. No proposed wording yet, sorry.
> >
> > Here is a simple one, stripping away the incorrect restriction. The
> > consideration about versioned virtual package may evolve with the dpkg
> > implementation, so I don’t believe it is worth it to document it in the
> > policy, at least not right now anyway.
>
> Support for versioned provides is still too new: it is present only in
> Jessie and unstable. This is a concern when dealing with backports.
So how long do you propose we should wait before adopting new dpkg/apt
features, if one release cycle isn't enough anymore?
Backports are not relevant for all packages. I can't really
see us supporting backports of major perl versions, as they are
generally binary incompatible with the older ones.
FWIW I don't think the policy needs to change before jessie is
released, but I don't think anybody was aiming for that anyway?
> I'd recommend we change the current text, but not by removing the
> restriction on versioned provides. Instead, mention that it does not exist
> anymore since Debian jessie (dpkg 1.17.11 and newer).
How about removing the restriction, but adding a footnote mentioning
that support for versioned provides is still new, and care should be
taken not to create needless complications on possible backports?
--
Niko Tyni ntyni@debian.org
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