Raphaël Hertzog wrote:
Package: debian-policy
Version: 3.8.3.0
Severity: wishlist
We have some unwritten packaging rules and it would be good to write them
down even if some of them appear to be obvious to most of us. I think in
particular to stuff like:
- a package must at least be upgradable from one stable release to the next:
- transitional packages are required when the software is renamed
- {pre,post}{inst,rm} snippets dealing with upgrade issues must be kept
for at least one release (but it's better to keep them for 2-3
releases)
I agree
- a package must provide some interface stability (names of programs,
ABI/API of libraries, location of data files, etc.) when other packages
depend on it. In that case, any change must be coordinated and
appropriate dependencies must be added. It should give examples of
Breaks:, bumped Depends when an change is made in a non-backwards
compatible way, temporary compatibility symlinks, etc.
I find difficult to implement it in policy in a clear way. We already have
nearly the same requirement for ABI/API in libraries: the package name must
contain the SOVERSION.
If we add such requirement, I would change chapter 8 from
"Shared libraries" into "Shared libraries and common files" and adding
a general stability suggestion.
BTW I find no reference in policy about the NEWS.Debian file. It would
nice to require to document (at last for one stable release) all (also
user visibe API/ABI) incompatibilities in such files.
ciao
cate
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