Debian Policy 3.9.4.0

I just uploaded Debian Policy 3.9.4.0, which includes the implementation of the Technical Committee decision to make build-arch and build-indep mandatory targets and which significantly reworks the section on shared libraries.

Nothing here is release-critical for wheezy, and uploads targeted for wheezy should not attempt to update packaging for a new version of Policy. I went into some more detail on debian-devel-announce.

The version number probably should have been 3.10.0.0 given the build-arch and build-indep changes and the work on symbols files. Ah well.

Here's the upgrading checklist:

2.4

New tasks archive section.

4.9

build-arch and build-indep are now mandatory targets in debian/rules.

5.6.26

New section documenting the Vcs-* fields, which are already in widespread use. Note the mechanism for specifying the Git branch used for packaging in the Vcs-Git field.

7.1

The deprecated relations < and > now must not be used.

7.8

New Built-Using field, which must be used to document the source packages for any binaries that are incorporated into this package at build time. This is used to ensure that the archive meets license requirements for providing source for all binaries.

8.6

Policy for dependencies between shared libraries and other packages has been largely rewritten to document the symbols system and more clearly document handling of shared library ABI changes. symbols files are now recommended over shlibs files in most situations. All maintainers of shared library packages should review the entirety of this section.

9.1.1

Packages must not assume the /run directory exists or is usable without a dependency on initscripts (>= 2.88dsf-13.3) until the stable release of Debian supports /run.

9.7

Packages including MIME configuration can now rely on triggers and do not need to call update-mime.

9.11

New section documenting general requirements for alternate init systems and specific requirements for integrating with upstart.

12.5

All copyright files must be encoded in UTF-8.

Posted: 2012-09-18 23:03 — Why no comments?