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Debian Technical Committee overrides systemd change
Debian packagers have a great deal of latitude when it comes to the configuration of the software they package; they may opt, for example, to disable default features in software that they feel are a security hazard. However, packagers are expected to ensure that their packages comply with Debian Policy, regardless of the upstream's preferences. If a packager fails to comply with the policy, the Debian Technical Committee (TC) can step in to override them, which it has done in the case of a recent systemd change that broke several programs that depend on a world-writable /run/lock directory.
The Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS) specifies that the /var/lock directory should be used to store lock files for devices and other resources shared by multiple applications. On Debian, /var/lock is a symbolic link to /run/lock. The /run directory is created as a tmpfs filesystem specifically for run-time files by systemd-tmpfiles during system startup.
Debian Policy still cites the FHS, even though the FHS has gone unmaintained for more than a decade. The specification was not so much finished as abandoned after FHS 3.0 was released—though there is a slow-moving effort to revive and revise the standard as FHS 4.0, it has not yet produced any results. Meanwhile, in the absence of a current standard, systemd has spun off its file-hierarchy documentation to the Linux Userspace API (UAPI) Group as a specification. LWN covered that development in August, related to Fedora's search for an FHS successor.