Debian: Thorsten Alteholz's Report, DPL Race, and Debian Policy 4.7.0.0

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Apr 08, 2024

• Thorsten Alteholz ☛ Thorsten Alteholz: My Debian Activities in March 2024

  FTP master

  This month I accepted 147 and rejected 12 packages. The overall number of packages that got accepted was 151.
  
  If you file an RM bug, please do check whether there are reverse dependencies as well and file RM bugs for them. It is annoying and time-consuming when I have to do the moreinfo dance.

  This was my hundred-seventeenth month that I did some work for the Debian LTS initiative, started by Raphael Hertzog at Freexian.

• IT Wire ☛ Two developers in running for post of Debian project leader

  The Debian GNU/Linux project has begun voting for a leader to head the project for 2024-25. Voting began on 6 April and is expected to wind up on 19 April.

• Debian ☛ Debian Policy 4.7.0.0 released

  Hello everyone,
  
  
  I just pushed version 4.7.0.0 of the Debian Policy Manual and related
  documents to sid.  Below you will find the significant normative changes
  from the previously-announced release of Policy (4.6.2.0).
  
  
  Thank you to everyone who contributed to this release, including those
  named in the changelog who formally proposed and seconded wording, and
  also those who otherwise participated in the discussions leading up to
  the wording change proposals.
  
  
  I would particularly like to call out Guillem Jover for a big chunk of
  work standardising the usage of dpkg-related terminology, and Stéphane
  Blondon for a new Debian-specific Sphinx theme for our html edition.
  Holger Wansing and Dmitry Shachnev did a lot of follow-up work to get
  that format published properly on the web mirrors.
  
  
  =*=*=*=
  
  
  2.2.1
      Document that source packages in the *main* archive area may build
      binary packages in the *contrib* archive area, although this is
      discouraged unless the source package is inconvenient to split.
      This does not relax the requirement that source packages in *main*
      must not have build dependencies outside of *main*.
  
  
  2.2.2
      The ``non-free-firmware`` archive area has been added.
  
  
  3.9
      Maintainer scripts should use native overriding mechanisms instead
      of dpkg-divert, wherever possible.  Maintainer scripts must not
      divert configuration files used by systemd components.
  
  
      Maintainer scripts must not use the alternatives system for systemd
      configuration files.
  
  
  4.8
      Hard links are permitted in source packages.
  
  
  4.9
      For packages in contrib, and for packages in non-free with
      ``Autobuild: yes``, required targets in d/rules are no longer
      permitted to attempt network access.  Previously, only packages in
      main had this restriction.
  
  
  5.6.13
      The ``Description`` field is not present in ``.changes`` files if no
      binary packages are being uploaded.
  
  
  5.6.19
      The ``Binary`` field is not present in ``.changes`` files if no
      binary packages are being uploaded.
  
  
  6.3
      Packages that automatically start or stop system services must
      include ``systemd`` units unless the service is only intended for
      use on systems running alternative init systems.
      Previously, ``systemd`` also supported init scripts, but that
      support is being removed.
  
  
  -- 
  Sean Whitton