role="package">doc-base</systemitem> package documentation for more
information.
</para>
+<para>
+Debian policy (section 12.1) directs that manual pages should accompany every
+program, utility, and function, and suggests them for other objects like
+configuration files. If the work you are packaging does not have such manual
+pages, consider writing them for inclusion in your package, and submitting them
+upstream.
+</para>
+<para>
+The manpages do not need to be written directly in the troff format. Popular
+source formats are Docbook, POD and reST, which can be converted using
+<command>xsltproc</command>, <command>pod2man</command> and
+<command>rst2man</command> respectively. To a lesser extent, the <command>
+help2man</command>program can also be used to write a stub.
+</para>
</section>
<section id="bpp-other">
<orderedlist numeration="arabic">
<listitem>
<para>
-<emphasis role="strong">must</emphasis> be documented in the resulting source package.
+should be documented in the resulting source package.
Detailed information on how the repackaged source was obtained,
-and on how this can be reproduced must be provided in
+and on how this can be reproduced should be provided in
<filename>debian/copyright</filename>. It is also a good idea to provide a
<literal>get-orig-source</literal> target in your
<filename>debian/rules</filename> file that repeats the process, as described