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<debiandoc>
<title>Debian Developer's Reference
<author>Developer's Reference Team &email-devel-ref;
- <author>Adam Di Carlo, editor
+ <author>Andreas Barth
+ <author>Adam Di Carlo
<author>Raphaël Hertzog
<author>Christian Schwarz
<author>Ian Jackson
<copyright>
<copyrightsummary>
+copyright © 2004 Andreas Barth</copyrightsummary>
+ <copyrightsummary>
copyright © 1998—2003 Adam Di Carlo</copyrightsummary>
<copyrightsummary>
copyright © 2002—2003 Raphaël Hertzog</copyrightsummary>
packages (<ref id="tools">).
<p>
It should be clear that this reference does not discuss the technical
-details of the Debian package nor how to generate Debian packages.
+details of Debian packages nor how to generate them.
Nor does this reference detail the standards to which Debian software
must comply. All of such information can be found in the <url
id="&url-debian-policy;" name="Debian Policy Manual">.
are happy with the packaging work you have done. You can find a sponsor
by mailing the &email-debian-mentors; mailing list, describing your
package and yourself and asking for a sponsor (see <ref id="sponsoring">
-for more information on sponsoring). On the other hand, if you are
+and <url id="&url-mentors;"> for more information on sponsoring).
+On the other hand, if you are
interested in porting Debian to alternative architectures or kernels
you can subscribe to port specific mailing lists and ask there how to
get started. Finally, if you are interested in documentation or
preparations you have to do before you can register to become a Debian
developer.
-For example, before you apply, you have to to read the <url
+For example, before you apply, you have to read the <url
id="&url-social-contract;" name="Debian Social Contract">.
Registering as a developer means that you agree with and pledge to
uphold the Debian Social Contract; it is very important that
to verify your application (an <em>advocate</em>). After you have
contributed to Debian for a while, and you want to apply to become a
registered developer, an existing developer with whom you
-have worked over the past months has to express his belief that you
+have worked over the past months has to express their belief that you
can contribute to Debian successfully.
<p>
When you have found an advocate, have your GnuPG key signed and have
might be able find a sponsor to upload your package for you. Sponsors
are people who are official Debian maintainers, and who are willing to
criticize and upload your packages for you. Those who are seeking a
-sponsor can request one at <url id="&url-sponsors;">.
+sponsor can request one at <url id="&url-sponsors;">. Please read the
+inofficial debian-mentors FAQ at <url id="&url-mentors;"> first.
<p>
If you wish to be a mentor and/or sponsor, more information is
available in <ref id="newmaint">.
nothing as critical as that, but it's still appropriate to let the others
know that you're unavailable.
<p>
-In order to inform the other developers, there's two things that you should do.
+In order to inform the other developers, there are two things that you should do.
First send a mail to &email-debian-private; with "[VAC] " prepended to the
subject of your message<footnote>This is so that the message can be easily
filtered by people who don't want to read vacation notices.</footnote>
<p>
A big part of your job as Debian maintainer will be to stay in contact
with the upstream developers. Debian users will sometimes report bugs
-to the Bug Tracking System that are not specific to Debian. You
-must forward these bug reports to the upstream developers so that
-they can be fixed in a future release. It's not your job to fix
-non-Debian specific bugs. However, if you are able to do so, you are
-encouraged to contribute to upstream development of the package by
-providing a fix for the bug. Debian users and developers will often
-submit patches to fix upstream bugs, and you should evaluate and
-forward these patches upstream.
+that are not specific to Debian to our bug tracking system. You
+have to forward these bug reports to the upstream developers so that
+they can be fixed in a future upstream release.
+ <p>
+While it's not your job to fix non-Debian specific bugs, you may freely
+do so if you're able. When you make such fixes, be sure to pass them on
+to the upstream maintainers as well. Debian users and developers will
+sometimes submit patches to fix upstream bugs — you should evaluate
+and forward these patches upstream.
<p>
If you need to modify the upstream sources in order to build a policy
compliant package, then you should propose a nice fix to the upstream
<p>
Generally you should deal with bug reports on your packages as described in
<ref id="bug-handling">. However, there's a special category of bugs that
-you need to take care of -- the so-called release-critical bugs (RC bugs).
+you need to take care of — the so-called release-critical bugs (RC bugs).
All bug reports that have severity <em>critical</em>, <em>grave</em> or
<em>serious</em> are considered to have an impact on whether the package can
be released in the next stable release of Debian.
<sect id="mailing-lists">Mailing lists
<p>
-The mailing list server is at <tt>&lists-host;</tt>.
+Much of the conversation between Debian developers (and users) is managed
+through a wide array of mailing lists we host at
+<tt><url id="http://&lists-host;/" name="&lists-host;"></tt>.
+To find out more on how to subscribe or unsubscribe, how to post and how not
+to post, where to find old posts and how to search them, how to contact the
+list maintainers and see various other information about the mailing lists,
+please read <url id="&url-debian-lists;">. This section will only cover
+aspects of mailing lists that are of particular interest to developers.
+
+ <sect1 id="mailing-lists-rules">Basic rules for use
+ <p>
+When replying to messages on the mailing list, please do not send a
+carbon copy (<tt>CC</tt>) to the original poster unless they explicitly
+request to be copied. Anyone who posts to a mailing list should read
+it to see the responses.
<p>
-Online archives of mailing lists are available at <url
-id="&url-lists-archives;">.
+Cross-posting (sending the same message to multiple lists) is discouraged.
+As ever on the net, please trim down the quoting of articles you're
+replying to. In general, please adhere to the usual conventions for
+posting messages.
+ <p>
+Please read the <url name="code of conduct" id="&url-debian-lists;#codeofconduct">
+for more information.
<sect1 id="core-devel-mailing-lists">Core development mailing lists
<p>
</item>
</list>
<p>
-There are
-other mailing lists available for a variety of special topics; see
-<url id="&url-debian-lists-subscribe;"> for a list.
-
- <sect1 id="mailing-lists-subunsub">Subscribing and unsubscribing
- <p>
-To subscribe to or unsubscribe from any of the Debian mailing lists, email
-<tt>debian-<var>foo</var>-REQUEST@&lists-host;</tt>, where
-<tt>debian-<var>foo</var></tt> is the name of the list, with the word
-<tt>subscribe</tt> in the <em>Subject</em> to subscribe to the list or
-<tt>unsubscribe</tt> to unsubscribe.
- <p>
-If you prefer to use a web page to subscribe to multiple mailing lists,
-there's one at <url id="&url-debian-lists-subscribe;">.
- <p>
-You can download the current list of mailing lists and basic usage
-instructions from <url id="&url-debian-lists-txt;">
-or install the <package>doc-debian</package> package and have it
-locally in &file-mail-lists;.
-
- <sect1 id="mailing-lists-rules">Basic rules for use
- <p>
-When replying to messages on the mailing list, please do not send a
-carbon copy (<tt>CC</tt>) to the original poster unless they explicitly
-request to be copied. Anyone who posts to a mailing list should read
-it to see the responses.
- <p>
-Cross-posting (sending the same message to multiple lists) is discouraged.
-As ever on the net, please trim down the quoting of articles you're
-replying to. In general, please adhere to the usual conventions for
-posting messages.
- <p>
-Please read the <url name="code of conduct" id="&url-debian-lists;">
-for more information.
+There are other mailing lists available for a variety of special topics;
+see <url id="http://&lists-host;/"> for a list.
<sect1 id="mailing-lists-special">Special lists
<p>
about licenses, bugs, etc. or discussing the project with others where it
might be useful to have the discussion archived somewhere.
+ <sect1 id="mailing-lists-new">Requesting new development-related lists
+ <p>
+Before requesting a mailing list that relates to the development of a
+package (or a small group of related packages), please consider if using
+an alias (via a .forward-aliasname file on master.debian.org, which
+translates into a reasonably nice <var>you-aliasname@debian.org</var>
+address) or a self-managed mailing list on <qref id="alioth">Alioth</qref>
+is more appropriate.
+ <p>
+If you decide that a regular mailing list on lists.debian.org is really what
+you want, go ahead and fill in a request, following <url name="the HOWTO"
+id="&url-debian-lists-new;">.
<sect id="irc-channels">IRC channels
<p>
suggestions for the web site, etc.),
generally you'll report a bug against a ``pseudo-package''. See <ref
id="submit-bug"> for information on how to submit bugs.
+ <p>
+Some of the core servers are restricted, but the information from there
+is mirror to another server.
<sect1 id="servers-bugs">The bugs server
<p>
<tt>&bugs-host;</tt> is the canonical location for the Bug Tracking
-System (BTS). If you plan on doing some statistical analysis or
+System (BTS).
+ <p>
+It is restricted; a mirror is available on <tt>merkel</tt>.
+ <p>
+If you plan on doing some statistical analysis or
processing of Debian bugs, this would be the place to do it. Please
describe your plans on &email-debian-devel; before implementing
anything, however, to reduce unnecessary duplication of effort or
wasted processing time.
- <p>
-All Debian developers have accounts on <tt>&bugs-host;</tt>.
<sect1 id="servers-ftp-master">The ftp-master server
<p>
archive (excluding the non-US packages). Generally, package uploads
go to this server; see <ref id="upload">.
<p>
+It is restricted; a mirror is available on <tt>merkel</tt>.
+ <p>
Problems with the Debian FTP archive generally need to be reported as
bugs against the <package>ftp.debian.org</package> pseudo-package or
an email to &email-ftpmaster;, but also see the procedures in
&email-debian-admin;. Include the name of the requested CVS area,
the Debian account that should own the CVS root area, and why you need it.
+ <sect1 id="dchroot">chroots to different distributions
+ <p>
+On some machines, there are chroots to different distributions available.
+You can use them like
+
+<example>
+vore% dchroot unstable
+Executing shell in chroot: /org/vore.debian.org/chroots/user/unstable
+</example>
+
+In all chroots, the normal user home directories are available.
+You can find out which chroots are available via
+<tt>&url-devel-machines;</tt>.
+
<sect id="devel-db">The Developers Database
<p>
<p>
The &debian-formal; distribution consists of a lot of packages
(<file>.deb</file>'s, currently around &number-of-pkgs;) and a few
-additional files (such documentation and installation disk images).
+additional files (such as documentation and installation disk images).
<p>
Here is an example directory tree of a complete Debian archive:
<p>
(<file>source</file>) and a directory for each supported architecture
(<file>binary-i386</file>, <file>binary-m68k</file>, etc.).
<p>
-The <file>main</file> area contains additional directories which holds
+The <file>main</file> area contains additional directories which hold
the disk images and some essential pieces of documentation required
for installing the Debian distribution on a specific architecture
(<file>disks-i386</file>, <file>disks-m68k</file>, etc.).
- <sect1>Sections
+ <sect1 id="archive-sections">Sections
<p>
The <em>main</em> section of the Debian archive is what makes up the
<strong>official &debian-formal; distribution</strong>. The
Linux 2.2 kernel supports even more architectures, including ARM and
UltraSPARC. Since Linux supports these platforms, Debian decided that
it should, too. Therefore, Debian has ports underway; in fact, we
-also have ports underway to non-Linux kernel. Aside from
+also have ports underway to non-Linux kernels. Aside from
<em>i386</em> (our name for Intel x86), there is <em>m68k</em>,
<em>alpha</em>, <em>powerpc</em>, <em>sparc</em>, <em>hurd-i386</em>,
<em>arm</em>, <em>ia64</em>, <em>hppa</em>, <em>s390</em>, <em>mips</em>,
support of five new architectures: <em>ia64</em>, <em>hppa</em>,
<em>s390</em>, <em>mips</em> and <em>mipsel</em>.
<p>
-Information for developers or uses about the specific ports are
+Information for developers and users about the specific ports are
available at the <url id="&url-debian-ports;" name="Debian Ports web
pages">.
the package (maintainer, version, etc.).
- <sect1>Distribution directories
+ <sect1>Distributions
<p>
The directory system described in the previous chapter is itself
contained within <em>distribution directories</em>. Each
to make sure everything in this distribution is working properly, it is
sometimes literally unstable.
<p>
-<ref id="testing"> is generated automatically by taking
+The <qref id="testing">"testing"</qref> distribution is generated
+automatically by taking
packages from unstable if they satisfy certain criteria. Those
criteria should ensure a good quality for packages within testing.
The update to testing is launched each day after the
-new packages have been installed.
+new packages have been installed. See <ref id="testing">.
<p>
After a period of development, once the release manager deems fit, the
<em>testing</em> distribution is frozen, meaning that the policies
freeze period, since the <em>unstable</em> distribution remains in
place in parallel with <em>testing</em>.
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>More information about the testing distribution</heading>
+ <p>
+Packages are usually installed into the `testing' distribution after they
+have undergone some degree of testing in unstable.
+ <p>
+For more details, please see the <qref id="testing">information about the
+testing distribution</qref>.
+
<sect2 id="experimental">Experimental
<p>
The <em>experimental</em> distribution is a special distribution.
Whenever there is a new upstream version of a package that introduces new
features but breaks a lot of old ones, it should either not be uploaded, or
be uploaded to <em>experimental</em>. A new, beta, version of some software
-which uses completely different configuration can go into
+which uses a completely different configuration can go into
<em>experimental</em>, at the maintainer's discretion. If you are working
on an incompatible or complex upgrade situation, you can also use
<em>experimental</em> as a staging area, so that testers can get early
<p>
An alternative to <em>experimental</em> is to use your personal web space
on <tt>people.debian.org</tt>.
-
+ <p>
+Please consider to use the option <tt>-v</tt> to <prgn>dpkg-buildpackage</prgn>
+if uploading a package to unstable to get the bugs finally closed that were
+first fixed in experimental.
<sect1 id="codenames">Release code names
<p>
<p>
The various download archives and the web site have several mirrors
available in order to relieve our canonical servers from heavy load.
-In fact, some of the canonical servers aren't public, and instead a
-first tier of mirrors balances the load. That way, users always access
+In fact, some of the canonical servers aren't public — a first tier
+of mirrors balances the load instead. That way, users always access
the mirrors and get used to using them, which allows Debian to better
spread its bandwidth requirements over several servers and networks,
and basically makes users avoid hammering on one primary location.
<sect id="incoming-system">
<heading>The Incoming system
<p>
-The Incoming system is responsible of collecting updated packages and
+The Incoming system is responsible for collecting updated packages and
installing them in the Debian archive. It consists of a set of
directories and scripts that are installed both on <tt>&ftp-master-host;</tt>
and <tt>&non-us-host;</tt>.
<p>
Packages are uploaded by all the maintainers into a directory called
<file>unchecked</file>. This directory is scanned every 15 minutes by
-the <prgn>katie</prgn> script, which verifies the integrity of the uploaded packages and the cryptographic
-signatures. If the package is considered ready to be installed, it
+the <prgn>katie</prgn> script, which verifies the integrity of the uploaded
+packages and their cryptographic signatures.
+If the package is considered ready to be installed, it
is moved into the <file>accepted</file> directory. If this is the first upload of
the package, it is moved in the <file>new</file> directory, where it waits
for an approval of the ftpmasters. If the package contains files to be installed
all the other directories are only writable by the ftpmasters, that is
why you can not remove an upload once it has been accepted.
- <sect1 id="delayed-incoming">Delayed incoming
+ <sect1 id="delayed-incoming-broken">Delayed incoming
+ <p>
+<em>Note:</em> This description here is currently disabled, because
+ftp-master is restricted. Please see <ref id="delayed-incoming"> for
+the currently working way.
<p>
The <file>unchecked</file> directory has a special <file>DELAYED</file>
subdirectory. It is itself subdivided in nine directories
<example>DELAY=5 dupload --to delayed <changes-file></example>
- <sect id="testing">
- <heading>The "testing" distribution</heading>
- <p>
-The scripts that update the <em>testing</em> distribution are run each day
-after the installation of the
-updated packages. They generate the <file>Packages</file> files for
-the <em>testing</em> distribution, but they do so in an intelligent manner
-trying to avoid any inconsistency and trying to use only
-non-buggy packages.
- <p>The inclusion of a package from <em>unstable</em> is conditional on the following:
-<list>
- <item>
-The package must have been available in <em>unstable</em> for several days;
-the precise number depends on the upload's urgency field. It
-is 10 days for low urgency, 5 days for medium urgency and 2 days for high
-urgency. Those delays may be doubled during a freeze;
- <item>
-It must have less release-critical bugs than the version available
-in <em>testing</em>;
- <item>
-It must be available on all architectures on which it has been
-previously built. <ref id="madison"> may be of interest to
-check that information;
- <item>
-It must not break any dependency of a package that is already available
-in <em>testing</em>;
- <item>
-The packages on which it depends must either be available in <em>testing</em>
-or they must be accepted into <em>testing</em> at the same time (and they will
-if they respect themselves all the criteria);
-</list>
- <p>
-To find out whether a package is progressing into testing or not, see the
-testing script output on the <url name="web page of the testing distribution"
-id="&url-testing-maint;">, or use the program <prgn>grep-excuses</prgn>
-which is in the <package>devscripts</package> package. This utility can
-easily be used in a <manref name="crontab" section="5"> to keep one
-informed of the progression of their packages into <em>testing</em>.
- <p>
-The <file>update_excuses</file> file does not always give the precise reason
-why the package is refused, one may have to find it on their own by looking
-what would break with the inclusion of the package. The <url
-id="&url-testing-maint;" name="testing web page"> gives some more information
-about the usual problems which may be causing such troubles.
- <p>
-Sometimes, some packages never enter <em>testing</em> because the set of
-inter-relationship is too complicated and can not be sorted out
-by the scripts. In that case, the release manager must be
-contacted, and he will force the inclusion of the packages.
- <p>
-In general, please refer to the <url name="testing web page"
-id="&url-testing-maint;"> for more information. It also includes
-answers to some of the frequently asked questions.
-
<sect id="pkg-info">Package information
<p>
which provides information, including the package description,
the dependencies and package download links.
<p>
-The bug tracking system track bugs for each package. You can
-view the bugs of a given package at the URL
+The bug tracking system tracks bugs for each package.
+You can view the bugs of a given package at the URL
<tt>http://&bugs-host;/<var>package-name</var></tt>.
<sect1 id="madison">The <prgn>madison</prgn> utility
<sect id="pkg-tracking-system">The Package Tracking System
<p>
-The Package Tracking System (PTS) is basically a tool to track by mail
-the activity of a source package. You just have to subscribe
-to a source package to start getting the mails related to it.
-You get the same mails as the maintainer. Each mail
-sent through the PTS is classified and associated to one of
-the keyword listed below. This will let you select the mails that
+The Package Tracking System (PTS) is an email-based tool to track
+the activity of a source package. This really means that you can
+get the same emails that the package maintainer gets, simply by
+subscribing to the package in the PTS.
+ <p>
+Each email sent through the PTS is classified under one of
+the keywords listed below. This will let you select the mails that
you want to receive.
<p>
By default you will get:
<tag><tt>bts-control</tt>
<item>
-The control mails notifying a status change in one of the bugs.
+The email notifications from <email>control@bugs.debian.org</email>
+about bug report status changes.
<tag><tt>upload-source</tt>
<item>
-The
confirmation mail from <prgn>katie</prgn> when an uploaded source
+The
email notification from <prgn>katie</prgn> when an uploaded source
package is accepted.
<tag><tt>katie-other</tt>
<item>
-Other warning and error mails from <prgn>katie</prgn> (like the
-override disparity for the section or priority field).
+Other warning and error emails from <prgn>katie</prgn> (such as an
+override disparity for the section and/or the priority field).
<tag><tt>default</tt>
<item>
-Any non-automatic mail sent to the PTS by people who wanted to
+Any non-automatic email sent to the PTS by people who wanted to
contact the subscribers of the package. This can be done by sending mail
-to <tt><var>srcpackage</var>@&pts-host;</tt>. In order to prevent spam,
-mails sent to these addresses must contain the header "X-PTS-Approved"
-with a non-empty string.
-
+to <tt><var>sourcepackage</var>@&pts-host;</tt>. In order to prevent spam,
+all messages sent to these addresses must contain the <tt>X-PTS-Approved</tt>
+header with a non-empty value.
<tag><tt>summary</tt>
<item>
-In the future, you may receive regular summary mails to keep you
-informed of the package's status (bug statistics, porting overview,
-progression in <em>testing</em>, ...).
+(This is a planned expansion.)
+The regular summary emails about the package's status (bug statistics,
+porting overview, progression in <em>testing</em>, ...).
</taglist>
+
<p>
-You can also decide to receive some more information:
+You can also decide to receive additional information:
<taglist>
<tag><tt>upload-binary</tt>
<item>
-The confirmation mail from <prgn>katie</prgn> when an uploaded binary
-package is accepted (to check that your package is recompiled for all
-architectures).
+The email notification from <prgn>katie</prgn> when an uploaded binary
+package is accepted. In other words, whenever a build daemon or a porter
+uploads your package for another architecture, you can get an email to
+track how your package gets recompiled for all architectures.
<tag><tt>cvs</tt>
<item>
-CVS commits if the maintainer has setup a system to forward commit
-notification to the PTS.
+CVS commit notifications, if the package has a CVS repository and the
+maintainer has set up forwarding commit notifications to the PTS.
<tag><tt>ddtp</tt>
<item>
<taglist>
-<tag><tt>subscribe <srcpackage> [<email>]</tt>
+<tag><tt>subscribe <sourcepackage> [<email>]</tt>
<item>
Subscribes <var>email</var> to communications related to the source package
- <var>srcpackage</var>. Sender address is used if the second argument is
- not present. If <var>srcpackage</var> is not a valid source package,
+ <var>sourcepackage</var>. Sender address is used if the second argument is
+ not present. If <var>sourcepackage</var> is not a valid source package,
you'll get a warning. However if it's a valid binary package, the PTS
will subscribe you to the corresponding source package.
-<tag><tt>unsubscribe <srcpackage> [<email>]</tt>
+<tag><tt>unsubscribe <sourcepackage> [<email>]</tt>
<item>
- Removes a previous subscription to the source package <var>srcpackage</var>
+ Removes a previous subscription to the source package <var>sourcepackage</var>
using the specified email address or the sender address if the second
argument is left out.
<tag><tt>keyword [<email>]</tt>
<item>
- Tells you the keywords that you are accepting. Each mail sent through
- the Package Tracking System is associated to a keyword and you receive
- only the mails associated to keywords that you are accepting. Here is
- the list of available keywords:
+ Tells you the keywords that you are accepting.
+ For an explanation of keywords, <qref id="pkg-tracking-system">see
+ above</qref>. Here's a quick summary:
<list>
<item><tt>bts</tt>: mails coming from the Debian Bug Tracking System
<item><tt>bts-control</tt>: reply to mails sent to &email-bts-control;
<item><tt>default</tt>: all the other mails (those which aren't "automatic")
</list>
-<tag><tt>keyword <srcpackage> [<email>]</tt>
+<tag><tt>keyword <sourcepackage> [<email>]</tt>
<item>
- Same as previous item but for the given source package since
+ Same as the previous item but for the given source package, since
you may select a different set of keywords for each source package.
<tag><tt>keyword [<email>] {+|-|=} <list of keywords></tt>
<item>
- Accept (+) or refuse (-) mails associated to the given keyword(s).
+ Accept (+) or refuse (-) mails classified under the given keyword(s).
Define the list (=) of accepted keywords.
-<tag><tt>keyword <srcpackage> [<email>] {+|-|=} <list of keywords></tt>
+<tag><tt>keyword <sourcepackage> [<email>] {+|-|=} <list of keywords></tt>
<item>
Same as previous item but overrides the keywords list for the
indicated source package.
<sect1 id="pts-mail-filtering">Filtering PTS mails
<p>
Once you are subscribed to a package, you will get the mails sent to
-<tt><var>srcpackage</var>@packages.qa.debian.org</tt>. Those mails
+<tt><var>sourcepackage</var>@packages.qa.debian.org</tt>. Those mails
have special headers appended to let you filter them in a special
-mailbox with <prgn>procmail</prgn>. The added headers are
+mailbox (e.g. with <prgn>procmail</prgn>). The added headers are
<tt>X-Loop</tt>, <tt>X-PTS-Package</tt>, <tt>X-PTS-Keyword</tt> and
<tt>X-Unsubscribe</tt>.
<p>
<p>
If you use a publicly accessible CVS repository for maintaining
your Debian package you may want to forward the commit notification
-to the PTS so that the subscribers (possible co-maintainers) can
+to the PTS so that the subscribers (and possible co-maintainers) can
closely follow the package's evolution.
<p>
-It's very easy to setup. Once your CVS repository generates commit
-notifications, you just have to make sure it sends a copy of those mails
-to <tt><var>srcpackage</var>_cvs@&pts-host;</tt>. Only people who
-accepts the <em>cvs</em> keyword will receive the notifications.
+Once you set up the CVS repository to generate commit notifications,
+you just have to make sure it sends a copy of those mails
+to <tt><var>sourcepackage</var>_cvs@&pts-host;</tt>. Only the people
+who accept the <em>cvs</em> keyword will receive these notifications.
<sect1 id="pts-web">The PTS web interface
<p>
-The PTS has been extended with a web interface that puts together
-many information about each source package. It features many useful
+The PTS has a web interface at <url id="http://&pts-host;/"> that puts
+together a lot of information about each source package. It features many useful
links (BTS, QA stats, contact information, DDTP translation status,
-buildd logs) and gathers many more information from various places
+buildd logs) and gathers much more information from various places
(30 latest changelog entries, testing status, ...). It's a very useful
tool if you want to know what's going on with a specific source
-package. Furthermore there's a form that let you easily subscribe to
-the mail service offered by the PTS.
+package. Furthermore there's a form that allows easy subscription to
+the PTS via email.
<p>
You can jump directly to the web page concerning a specific source package
-with an url like <tt>http://&pts-host;/<var>srcpackage</var></tt>. Otherwise
-you can go through the <url id="http://&pts-host;" name="main page">.
+with a URL like <tt>http://&pts-host;/<var>sourcepackage</var></tt>.
<p>
This web interface has been designed like a portal for the development of
-packages: you can add custom content on the pages of your packages. You can
-add "static information" (news item that are meant to stay available
+packages: you can add custom content on your packages' pages. You can
+add "static information" (news items that are meant to stay available
indefinitely) and news items in the "latest news" section.
<p>
-Static news can be used to indicate:
+Static news items can be used to indicate:
<list>
-<item>the availability of a project hosted on alioth.debian.org for co-maintaining the package
-<item>a link to the upstream website
-<item>a link to the upstream bugtracker
+<item>the availability of a project hosted on <qref id="alioth">Alioth</qref> for co-maintaining the package
+<item>a link to the upstream web site
+<item>a link to the upstream bug tracker
<item>the existence of an IRC channel dedicated to the software
<item>any other available resource that could be useful in the maintenance of the package
</list>
-Usual news item may be used to announce that:
+Usual news items may be used to announce that:
<list>
-<item>beta packages are available for test
+<item>beta packages are available for testing
<item>final packages are expected for next week
<item>the packaging is about to be redone from scratch
<item>backports are available
-<item>the maintainer is on vacation (if he wishes to publish this information)
+<item>the maintainer is on vacation (if they wish to publish this information)
<item>a NMU is being worked on
<item>something important will affect the package
</list>
<p>
-Both kind of news are generated in a similar manner: you just have to send a mail
-either to <email>pts-static-news@qa.debian.org</email> or to
-<email>pts-news@qa.debian.org</email>. The mail should indicate which package is
-concerned by the news by giving the name of the source package in a
+Both kinds of news are generated in a similar manner: you just have to send
+an email either to <email>pts-static-news@qa.debian.org</email> or to
+<email>pts-news@qa.debian.org</email>. The mail should indicate which
+package is concerned by having the name of the source package in a
<tt>X-PTS-Package</tt> mail header or in a <tt>Package</tt> pseudo-header (like the
-BTS reports). If an URL is available in the <tt>X-PTS-Url</tt> mail header or in
+BTS reports). If a URL is available in the <tt>X-PTS-Url</tt> mail header or in
the <tt>Url</tt> pseudo-header, then the result is a link to that URL instead
of a complete news item.
<p>
-Some examples of valid mails used to generate news item in the PTS are following. The first one
-adds a link to the cvsweb interface of debian-cd in the "Static information" section.
+Here are a few examples of valid mails used to generate news items in
+the PTS. The first one adds a link to the cvsweb interface of debian-cd
+in the "Static information" section:
<example>
From: Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
To: pts-static-news@qa.debian.org
Package: debian-cd
Url: http://cvs.debian.org/debian-cd/
</example>
-The second one is an announce sent to a mailing list which is also sent
+ <p>
+The second one is an announcement sent to a mailing list which is also sent
to the PTS so that it is published on the PTS web page of the package. Note the
-use of the BCC field to avoid answers sent to the PTS by mistake ...
+use of the BCC field to avoid answers sent to the PTS by mistake.
<example>
From: Raphael Hertzog <hertzog@debian.org>
To: debian-gtk-gnome@lists.debian.org
Subject: Galeon 2.0 backported for woody
X-PTS-Package: galeon
-Hello gnomers !
+Hello gnomers!
I'm glad to announce that galeon has been backported for woody. You'll find
everything here:
...
</example>
<p>
-Think twice before adding a news to the PTS because you won't be able to
-remove it later and you wan't be able to edit it either. The only thing that you
-can do is send a second news that will deprecate the information contained in
-the first news.
+Think twice before adding a news item to the PTS because you won't be able
+to remove it later and you wan't be able to edit it either. The only thing
+that you can do is send a second news item that will deprecate the
+information contained in the previous one.
<sect id="ddpo">Developer's packages overview
<p>
you don't forget any open bug, and so that you don't forget which
packages are under your responsibility.
+ <sect id="alioth">Debian *Forge: Alioth
+ <p>
+Alioth is a fairly new Debian service, based on a slightly modified version
+of the GForge software (which evolved from SourceForge). This software
+offers developers access to easy-to-use tools such as bug trackers, patch
+manager, project/task managers, file hosting services, mailing lists, CVS
+repositories etc. All these tools are managed via a web interface.
+ <p>
+It is intended to provide facilities to free software projects backed or led
+by Debian, facilitate contributions from external developers to projects
+started by Debian, and help projects whose goals are the promotion of Debian
+or its derivatives.
+ <p>
+For more information please visit <url id="&url-alioth;">.
+
<chapt id="pkgs">Managing Packages
<p>
the package is installed into the archive. See <ref
id="upload-bugfix">.
<p>
-It is conventional that the changelog entry notating of a package that
+It is conventional that the changelog entry of a package that
contains a new upstream version of the software looks like this:
<example>
* new upstream version
`testing-security', but read <ref id="bug-security"> for more information on
those.
<p>
-It is technically possible to upload a package into several distributions
-at the same time but it usually doesn't make sense to use that feature
-because the dependencies of the package may vary with the distribution.
-In particular, it never makes sense to combine the <em>experimental</em>
-distribution with anything else (see <ref id="experimental">).
+It is not possible to upload a package into several distributions
+at the same time.
- <sect1 id="upload-stable">Uploads to <em>stable</em>
+ <sect1 id="upload-stable">
+ <heading>Special case: uploads to the <em>stable</em> distribution</heading>
<p>
Uploading to <em>stable</em> means that the package will be placed into the
<file>stable-proposed-updates</file> directory of the Debian archive for further
released. See <ref id="bug-security"> for detailed information on
handling security problems.
<p>
-It is discouraged to change anything else in the package that isn't
-important, because even trivial fixes can cause bugs later on.
+Changing anything else in the package that isn't important is discouraged,
+because even trivial fixes can cause bugs later on.
<p>
Packages uploaded to <em>stable</em> need to be compiled on systems running
<em>stable</em>, so that their dependencies are limited to the libraries
verbose, if necessary) in your changelog entries for uploads to
<em>stable</em>, because otherwise the package won't be considered for
inclusion.
-
- <sect1 id="upload-t-p-u">Uploads to <em>testing-proposed-updates</em>
<p>
-The testing distribution is fed with packages from unstable according to the rules
-explained in <ref id="testing">. However, the release manager may stop the testing
-scripts when he wants to freeze the distribution. In that case, you may want to
-upload to <em>testing-proposed-updates</em> to provide fixed packages during the freeze.
- <p>
-Keep in mind that packages uploaded there are not automatically processed, they
-have to go through the hands of the release manager. So you'd better have a good
-reason to upload there. In order to know what a good reason is in the
-release manager's eyes, you should read the instructions that he regularly
-gives on &email-debian-devel-announce;.
+It's best practice to speak with the stable release manager <em>before</em>
+uploading to <em>stable</em>/<em>stable-proposed-updates</em>, so that the
+uploaded package fits the needs of the next point release.
+
+ <sect1 id="upload-t-p-u">
+ <heading>Special case: uploads to <em>testing/testing-proposed-updates</em></heading>
<p>
-You should not upload to <em>testing-proposed-updates</em> when you can update your
-packages through <em>unstable</em>. If you can't (for example because you have a
-newer development version in unstable), you may use it but it is recommended to ask
-the authorization of the release manager before.
+Please see the information in the <qref id="t-p-u">testing section</qref> for details.
<sect id="upload">Uploading a package
<sect1 id="upload-ftp-master">Uploading to <tt>ftp-master</tt>
<p>
-To upload a package, you need a personal account on
-<ftpsite>&ftp-master-host;</ftpsite>, which you should have as an
-official maintainer. If you use <prgn>scp</prgn> or <prgn>rsync</prgn>
-to transfer the files, place them into &us-upload-dir;;
-if you use anonymous FTP to upload, place them into
-&upload-queue;.
+To upload a package, you should upload the files (including the signed
+changes and dsc-file) with anonymous ftp to
+<ftpsite>&ftp-master-host;</ftpsite> in the directory &upload-queue;.
+To get the files processed there, they need to be signed with a key in the
+debian keyring.
<p>
Please note that you should transfer
the changes file last. Otherwise, your upload may be rejected because the
archive maintenance software will parse the changes file and see that not
-all files have been uploaded. If you don't want to bother with transferring
-the changes file last, you can simply copy your files to a temporary
-directory on <tt>ftp-master</tt> and then move them to
-&us-upload-dir;.
- <p>
+all files have been uploaded.
+ <p>
<em>Note:</em> Do not upload to <tt>ftp-master</tt> cryptographic
packages which belong to <em>contrib</em> or <em>non-free</em>. Uploads of
such software should go to <tt>non-us</tt> (see <ref
<tt>ftp-master</tt>; depending on the case they may still be uploaded to
<file>non-US/non-free</file> (it's in non-free because of distribution issues
and not because of the license of the software). If you can't upload it to
-<tt>ftp-master</tt>, then neither can you upload it to the overseas upload
-queues on <tt>chiark</tt> or <tt>erlangen</tt>. If you are not sure
+<tt>ftp-master</tt>, then neither can you upload it to backup
+queues that finally also end up on <tt>ftp-master</tt>. If you are not sure
whether U.S. patent controls or cryptographic controls apply to your
package, post a message to &email-debian-devel; and ask.
<p>
You may also find the Debian packages <ref id="dupload"> or
<ref id="dput"> useful
-when uploading packages. These handy programs help automate the
+when uploading packages. These handy programs help automate the
process of uploading packages into Debian.
<p>
-After uploading your package, you can check how the archive
-maintenance software will process it by running <prgn>dinstall</prgn>
-on your changes file:
-<example>dinstall -n foo.changes</example>
- <p>
-Note that <prgn>dput</prgn> can do this for you automatically.
+For removing packages, please see the README file in that ftp directory,
+and the Debian package <ref id="dcut">.
<sect1 id="upload-non-us">Uploading to <tt>non-US</tt>
<p>
-As discussed above, export controlled software should not be uploaded
-to <tt>ftp-master</tt>. Instead, upload the package to
-<ftpsite>non-us.debian.org</ftpsite>, placing the files in
-&non-us-upload-dir; (again, both <ref id="dupload"> and <ref
-id="dput"> can do this for you if invoked properly). By default,
-you can use the same account/password that works on
-<tt>ftp-master</tt>. If you use anonymous FTP to upload, place the
-files into &upload-queue;.
+<em>Note:</em> non-us is currently not processed any more.
<p>
-You can check your upload the same way it's done on <tt>ftp-master</tt>,
-with:
-<example>dinstall -n foo.changes</example>
+As discussed above, export controlled software should not be uploaded
+to <tt>ftp-master</tt>. Instead, upload the package with anonymous FTP
+to <ftpsite>non-us.debian.org</ftpsite>, placing the files in
+&upload-queue; (again, both <ref id="dupload"> and <ref
+id="dput"> can do this for you if invoked properly).
<p>
Note that U.S. residents or citizens are subject to restrictions on
export of cryptographic software. As of this writing, U.S. citizens
residents consult a lawyer before doing uploads to non-US.
- <sect1>Uploads via <tt>chiark</tt>
+ <sect1 id="delayed-incoming">Delayed uploads
<p>
-If you have a slow network connection to <tt>ftp-master</tt>, there are
-alternatives. One is to upload files to <file>Incoming</file> via a
-upload queue in Europe on <tt>chiark</tt>. For details connect to
-<url id="&url-chiark-readme;">.
+Delayed uploads are done for the moment via the delayed queue at
+gluck. The upload-directory is
+<ftpsite>gluck:~tfheen/DELAYED/[012345678]-day</ftpsite>.
+0-day is uploaded approximately one hour before dinstall runs.
<p>
-<em>Note:</em> Do not upload packages containing software that is
-export-controlled by the United States government to the queue on
-<tt>chiark</tt>. Since this upload queue goes to <tt>ftp-master</tt>, the
-prescription found in <ref id="upload-ftp-master"> applies here as well.
- <p>
-The program <prgn>dupload</prgn> comes with support for uploading to
-<tt>chiark</tt>; please refer to the documentation that comes with the
-program for details.
-
-
- <sect1>Uploads via <tt>erlangen</tt>
- <p>
-Another upload queue is available in Germany: just upload the files
-via anonymous FTP to <url id="&url-upload-erlangen;">.
- <p>
-The upload must be a complete Debian upload, as you would put it into
-<tt>ftp-master</tt>'s <file>Incoming</file>, i.e., a <file>.changes</file> files
-along with the other files mentioned in the <file>.changes</file>. The
-queue daemon also checks that the <file>.changes</file> is correctly
-signed with GnuPG or OpenPGP by a Debian developer, so that no bogus files can find
-their way to <tt>ftp-master</tt> via this queue. Please also make sure that
-the <tt>Maintainer</tt> field in the <file>.changes</file> contains
-<em>your</em> e-mail address. The address found there is used for all
-replies, just as on <tt>ftp-master</tt>.
- <p>
-There's no need to move your files into a second directory after the
-upload, as on <tt>chiark</tt>. And, in any case, you should get a
-mail reply from the queue daemon explaining what happened to your
-upload. Hopefully it should have been moved to <tt>ftp-master</tt>, but in
-case of errors you're notified, too.
+With a fairly recent dput, this section
+<example>
+[tfheen_delayed]
+method = scp
+fqdn = gluck.debian.org
+incoming = ~tfheen
+</example>
+in ~/.dput.cf should work fine for uploading to the DELAYED queue.
<p>
-<em>Note:</em> Do not upload packages containing software that is
-export-controlled by the United States government to the queue on
-<tt>erlangen</tt>. Since this upload queue goes to <tt>ftp-master</tt>, the
+<em>Note:</em>
+Since this upload queue goes to <tt>ftp-master</tt>, the
prescription found in <ref id="upload-ftp-master"> applies here as well.
- <p>
-The program <prgn>dupload</prgn> comes with support for uploading to
-<tt>erlangen</tt>; please refer to the documentation that comes with
-the program for details.
+ <sect1>Security uploads
+ <p>
+Do NOT upload a package to the security upload queue (oldstable-security,
+stable-security, etc.) without prior authorization from the security
+team. If the package does not exactly meet the team's requirements, it
+will cause many problems and delays in dealing with the unwanted upload.
+For details, please see section <ref id="bug-security">.
<sect1>Other upload queues
<p>
-Another upload queue is available which is based in the US, and is a
-good backup when there are problems reaching <tt>ftp-master</tt>. You can
-upload files, just as in <tt>erlangen</tt>, to <url
-id="&url-upload-samosa;">.
+The scp queues on ftp-master, non-us and security are mostly unuseable
+due to the login restrictions on those hosts.
<p>
-An upload queue is available in Japan: just upload the files via
-anonymous FTP to <url id="&url-upload-jp;">.
-
+The anonymous queues on ftp.uni-erlangen.de and ftp.uk.debian.org are
+currently down. Work is underway to resurrect those.
+ <p>
+The queues on master.debian.org, samosa.debian.org, master.debian.or.jp
+and ftp.chiark.greenend.org.uk are down permanently and will not be
+resurrected. The queue in Japan will be replaced with a new queue on
+hp.debian.or.jp some day.
+ <p>
+For the time being, the anonymous ftp queue on auric.debian.org (the
+former ftp-master) works, but it is deprecated and will be removed at
+some point in the future.
<sect1 id="upload-notification">
<heading>Notification that a new package has been installed</heading>
Note also that if you upload via queues, the queue daemon software will
also send you a notification by email.
- <sect id="override-file">Determining section and priority of a package
+ <sect id="override-file">Specifying the package section, subsection and priority
<p>
The <file>debian/control</file> file's <tt>Section</tt> and
<tt>Priority</tt> fields do not actually specify where the file will
name="dpkg-scanpackages" section="8"> and
<url id="&url-bts-devel;#maintincorrect">.
<p>
-Note also that the term "section" is used for the separation of packages
-according to their licensing, e.g. <em>main</em>, <em>contrib</em> and
-<em>non-free</em>. This is described in another section, <ref id="archive">.
+Note that the <tt>Section</tt> field describes both the section as
+well as the subsection, which are described in <ref
+id="archive-sections">. If the section is "main", it should be
+omitted. The list of allowable subsections can be found in <url
+id="&url-debian-policy;ch-archive.html#s-subsections">.
<sect id="bug-handling">Handling bugs
<p>
The bug tracking system's features interesting to developers are described
in the <url id="&url-bts-devel;" name="BTS documentation for developers">.
-This includes closing bugs, sending followup messages, assigning severities,
-tags, marking bugs as forwarded and other issues.
+This includes closing bugs, sending followup messages, assigning severities
+and tags, marking bugs as forwarded and other issues.
<p>
Operations such as reassigning bugs to other packages, merging separate
bug reports about the same issue, or reopening bugs when they are
<sect1 id="bug-answering">Responding to bugs
<p>
-Make sure that any discussion you have about bugs are sent both to
-the original submitter of the bug, and the bug itself (e.g.,
-<email>123@&bugs-host;</email>). If you're writing a new
+When responding to bugs, make sure that any discussion you have about
+bugs is sent both to the original submitter of the bug, and to the bug
+itself (e.g., <email>123@&bugs-host;</email>). If you're writing a new
mail and you don't remember the submitter email address, you can
use the <email>123-submitter@&bugs-host;</email> email to
contact the submitter <em>and</em> to record your mail within the
bug log (that means you don't need to send a copy of the mail to
<email>123@&bugs-host;</email>).
<p>
+If you get a bug which mentions "FTBFS", that means "Fails to build
+from source". Porters frequently use this acronym.
+ <p>
Once you've dealt with a bug report (e.g. fixed it), mark it as
<em>done</em> (close it) by sending an explanation message to
<email>123-done@&bugs-host;</email>. If you're fixing a bug by
Decide whether the report corresponds to a real bug or not. Sometimes
users are just calling a program in the wrong way because they haven't
read the documentation. If you diagnose this, just close the bug with
-enough information to let the user correct his problem (give pointers
+enough information to let the user correct their problem (give pointers
to the good documentation and so on). If the same report comes up
again and again you may ask yourself if the documentation is good
enough or if the program shouldn't detect its misuse in order to
give an informative error message. This is an issue that may need
to be brought to the upstream author.
<p>
-If the bug submitter disagree with your decision to close the bug,
+If the bug submitter disagrees with your decision to close the bug,
they may reopen it until you find an agreement on how to handle it.
If you don't find any, you may want to tag the bug <tt>wontfix</tt>
to let people know that the bug exists but that it won't be corrected.
doing so, please read the <url id="&url-tech-ctte;" name="recommended procedure">.
<item>
If the bug is real but it's caused by another package, just reassign
-the bug the right package. If you don't know which package it should
+the bug to the right package. If you don't know which package it should
be reassigned to, you may either ask for help on &email-debian-devel; or
reassign it to <package>debian-policy</package> to let them decide which
-package is in fault.
+package is at fault.
<p>
Sometimes you also have to adjust the severity of the bug so that it
matches our definition of the severity. That's because people tend to
Some bugs may even be dropped to wishlist severity when the requested
change is just cosmetic.
<item>
-The bug submitter may have forgotten to provide some information, in that
-case you have to ask him the information required. You may use the
+The bug submitter may have forgotten to provide some information, in which
+case you have to ask them the required information. You may use the
<tt>moreinfo</tt> tag to mark the bug as such. Moreover if you can't
reproduce the bug, you tag it <tt>unreproducible</tt>. Anyone who
can reproduce the bug is then invited to provide more information
don't have anything to do with an upload you made, do it by emailing
an explanation to <email>XXX-done@&bugs-host;</email>. Do
<strong>not</strong> close bugs in the changelog entry of a version if
-the changes in that version of the package doesn't have any bearing on
+the changes in that version of the package don't have any bearing on
the bug.
<p>
For general information on how to write your changelog entries, see
When you become aware of a security-related bug in a Debian package,
whether or not you are the maintainer, collect pertinent information
about the problem, and promptly contact the security team at
-&email-security-team; as soon as possible. Useful information
-includes, for example:
+&email-security-team; as soon as possible. <strong>DO NOT UPLOAD</strong> any
+packages for stable; the security team will do that.
+
+Useful information includes, for example:
<list compact>
<item>What versions of the package are known to be affected by the
<list compact>
<item>he notices it on a public forum (mailing list, web site, etc.)
<item>someone files a bug report
- <item>someone informs him via private email
+ <item>someone informs them via private email
</list>
In the first two cases, the information is public and it is important
<p>
There are two reasons for releasing information even though secrecy is
-requested: the problem has been known for a while, or that the problem
+requested: the problem has been known for a while, or the problem
or exploit has become public.
<sect2 id="bug-security-advisories">Security Advisories
package. Test other, normal actions as well, as sometimes a security
fix can break seemingly unrelated features in subtle ways.
<p>
+Do <strong>NOT</strong> include any changes in your package which are
+not directly related to fixing the vulnerability. These will only
+need to be reverted, and this wastes time. If there are other bugs in
+your package that you would like to fix, make an upload to
+proposed-updates in the usual way, after the security advisory is
+issued. The security update mechanism is not a means for introducing
+changes to your package which would otherwise be rejected from the
+stable release, so please do not attempt to do this.
+<p>
Review and test your changes as much as possible. Check the
differences from the previous version repeatedly
(<prgn>interdiff</prgn> from the <package>patchutils</package> package
and <prgn>debdiff</prgn> from <package>devscripts</package> are useful
tools for this, see <ref id="debdiff">).
<p>
-When packaging the fix, keep the following points in mind:
+Be sure to verify the following items:
<list>
- <item>Make sure you target the right distribution in your
+ <item>Target the right distribution in your
<file>debian/changelog</file>. For stable this is <tt>stable-security</tt> and for
testing this is <tt>testing-security</tt>, and for the previous
stable release, this is <tt>oldstable-security</tt>. Do not target
- <var>distribution</var>-proposed-updates!
+ <var>distribution</var>-proposed-updates or <tt>stable</tt>!
+
+ <item>The upload should have urgency=high.
<item>Make descriptive, meaningful changelog entries. Others will
rely on them to determine whether a particular bug was fixed.
- Whenever possible, include an external reference, preferably a CVE
- identifier, so that it can be cross-referenced.
+ Always include an external reference, preferably a CVE
+ identifier, so that it can be cross-referenced. Include the same
+ information in the changelog for unstable, so that it is clear that
+ the same bug was fixed, as this is very helpful when verifying
+ that the bug is fixed in the next stable release. If a CVE
+ identifier has not yet been assigned, the security team will
+ request one so that it can be included in the package and in the advisory.
<item>Make sure the version number is proper. It must be greater
than the current package, but less than package versions in later
distributions. If in doubt, test it with <tt>dpkg
- --compare-versions</tt>. For <em>testing</em>, there must be
+ --compare-versions</tt>. Be careful not to re-use a version
+ number that you have already used for a previous upload. For
+ <em>testing</em>, there must be
a higher version in <em>unstable</em>. If there is none yet (for example,
if <em>testing</em> and <em>unstable</em> have the same version) you must upload a
new version to unstable first.
not build those. This point applies to normal package uploads as
well.
- <item>If the upstream source has been uploaded to
+ <item>Unless the upstream source has been uploaded to
security.debian.org before (by a previous security update), build
- the upload without the upstream source (<tt>dpkg-buildpackage
- -sd</tt>). Otherwise, build with full source
- (<tt>dpkg-buildpackage -sa</tt>).
+ the upload with full upstream source (<tt>dpkg-buildpackage
+ -sa</tt>). If there has been a previous upload to
+ security.debian.org with the same upstream version, you may upload
+ without upstream source (<tt>dpkg-buildpackage -sd</tt>).
<item>Be sure to use the exact same <file>*.orig.tar.gz</file> as used in the
normal archive, otherwise it is not possible to move the security
fix into the main archives later.
- <item>Be sure to build the package on a clean
+ <item>Build the package on a clean
system which only has packages installed from the distribution you
are building for. If you do not have such a system yourself, you
can use a debian.org machine (see <ref id="server-machines">)
<sect2 id="bug-security-upload">Uploading the fixed package
<p>
-<em>DO NOT</em> upload a package to the security upload queue
+Do <strong>NOT</strong> upload a package to the security upload queue
(oldstable-security, stable-security, etc.) without
prior authorization from the security team. If the package does not
exactly meet the team's requirements, it will cause many problems and
delays in dealing with the unwanted upload.
<p>
-<em>DO NOT</em> upload your fix to proposed-updates without
+Do <strong>NOT</strong> upload your fix to proposed-updates without
coordinating with the security team. Packages from
security.debian.org will be copied into the proposed-updates directory
automatically. If a package with the same or a higher version number
removed. For example, you can provide the name of the package that
supersedes the one to be removed.
<p>
-Usually you only ask the removal of a package maintained by yourself.
+Usually you only ask for the removal of a package maintained by yourself.
If you want to remove another package, you have to get the approval
-of its last maintainer.
+of its maintainer.
<p>
If in doubt concerning whether a package is disposable, email
&email-debian-devel; asking for opinions. Also of interest is the
package. When invoked as <tt>apt-cache showpkg
<var>package</var></tt>, the program will show details for
<var>package</var>, including reverse depends.
+Removal of orphaned packages is discussed on &email-debian-qa;.
<p>
Once the package has been removed, the package's bugs should be handled.
They should either be reassigned to another package in the case where
In the past, it was possible to remove packages from <file>incoming</file>.
However, with the introduction of the new incoming system, this is no longer
possible. Instead, you have to upload a new revision of your package with
-a higher version as the package you want to replace. Both versions will be
+a higher version than the package you want to replace. Both versions will be
installed in the archive but only the higher version will actually be
available in <em>unstable</em> since the previous version will immediately
be replaced by the higher. However, if you do proper testing of your
<sect1>Replacing or renaming packages
<p>
-Sometimes you made a mistake naming the package and you need to rename
-it. In this case, you need to follow a two-step process. First, set
+When you make a mistake naming your package, you should follow a two-step
+process to rename it. First, set
your <file>debian/control</file> file to replace and conflict with the
obsolete name of the package (see the <url id="&url-debian-policy;"
name="Debian Policy Manual"> for details). Once you've uploaded
against the pseudo package <package>wnpp</package>. The bug report should be
titled <tt>O: <var>package</var> -- <var>short description</var></tt>
indicating that the package is now orphaned. The severity of the bug
-should be set to <em>normal</em>. If you feel it's necessary, send a copy
+should be set to <em>normal</em>; if the package has a priority of standard
+or higher, it should be set to important.
+If you feel it's necessary, send a copy
to &email-debian-devel; by putting the address in the X-Debbugs-CC: header
of the message (no, don't use CC:, because that way the message's subject
won't indicate the bug number).
<p>
-If the package is especially crucial to Debian, you should instead submit
+If you just intend to give the package away, but you can keep maintainership
+for the moment, then you should instead submit
a bug against <package>wnpp</package> and title it <tt>RFA: <var>package</var> --
-<var>short description</var></tt> and set its severity to
-<em>important</em>. <tt>RFA</tt> stands for <em>Request For Adoption</em>.
-Definitely copy the message to debian-devel in this case, as described
-above.
+<var>short description</var></tt>.
+<tt>RFA</tt> stands for <em>Request For Adoption</em>.
<p>
-Read instructions on the <url id="&url-wnpp;" name="WNPP web pages">
-for more information.
+More information is on the <url id="&url-wnpp;" name="WNPP web pages">.
<sect1 id="adopting">Adopting a package
<p>
most of this chapter.
<p>
Porting is the act of building Debian packages for architectures that
-is different from the original architecture of the package
+are different from the original architecture of the package
maintainer's binary package. It is a unique and essential activity.
In fact, porters do most of the actual compiling of Debian packages.
For instance, for a single <em>i386</em> binary package, there must be
committed by Debian maintainers — common problems which often stymie
porters, and make their jobs unnecessarily difficult.
<p>
-The first and most important watchword is to respond quickly to bug or
+The first and most important thing is to respond quickly to bug or
issues raised by porters. Please treat porters with courtesy, as if
they were in fact co-maintainers of your package (which in a way, they
are). Please be tolerant of succinct or even unclear bug reports,
Make sure you don't rely on locally installed or hacked configurations
or programs. For instance, you should never be calling programs in
<file>/usr/local/bin</file> or the like. Try not to rely on programs
-be setup in a special way. Try building your package on another
+being setup in a special way. Try building your package on another
machine, even if it's the same architecture.
<item>
Don't depend on the package you're building already being installed (a
results of their work during the waiting period. This helps others
running the port have the benefit of the porter's work, even during
the waiting period. Of course, such locations have no official
-blessing or status, so buyer, beware.
+blessing or status, so buyer beware.
<sect1 id="porter-automation">
Debian porters, who compile packages for different architectures,
occasionally do binary-only NMUs as part of their porting activity
(see <ref id="porting">). Another reason why NMUs are done is when a
-Debian developers needs to fix another developers' packages in order to
+Debian developer needs to fix another developer's packages in order to
address serious security problems or crippling bugs, especially during
the freeze, or when the package maintainer is unable to release a fix
in a timely fashion.
filed in the Debian Bug Tracking System (BTS).
If they are not, submit them immediately.
<item>
-Wait a few days the response from the maintainer. If you don't get
-any response, you may want to help him by sending the patch that fixes
+Wait a few days for the response from the maintainer. If you don't get
+any response, you may want to help them by sending the patch that fixes
the bug. Don't forget to tag the bug with the "patch" keyword.
<item>
Wait a few more days. If you still haven't got an answer from the
-maintainer, send him a mail announcing your intent to NMU the package.
+maintainer, send them a mail announcing your intent to NMU the package.
Prepare an NMU as described in <ref id="nmu-guidelines">, test it
carefully on your machine (cf. <ref id="sanitycheck">).
Double check that your patch doesn't have any unexpected side effects.
<p>
The following applies to porters insofar as they are playing the dual
role of being both package bug-fixers and package porters. If a
-porter has to change the Debian source archive, automatically their
-upload is a source NMU and is subject to its rules. If a porter is
+porter has to change the Debian source archive, their upload is
+automatically a source NMU and is subject to its rules. If a porter is
simply uploading a recompiled binary package, the rules are different;
see <ref id="porter-guidelines">.
<p>
personal attack against the maintainer. It is a proof that
someone cares enough about the package and that they were willing to help
you in your work, so you should be thankful. You may also want to
-ask them if they would be interested to help you on a more frequent
+ask them if they would be interested in helping you on a more frequent
basis as co-maintainer or backup maintainer
(see <ref id="collaborative-maint">).
the base set have co-maintainers.</p>
<p>
Generally there is a primary maintainer and one or more
-co-maintainers. The primary maintainer is the whose name is listed in
+co-maintainers. The primary maintainer is the person whose name is listed in
the <tt>Maintainer</tt> field of the <file>debian/control</file> file.
Co-maintainers are all the other maintainers.</p>
<p>
In its most basic form, the process of adding a new co-maintainer is
-quite easy:<list>
+quite easy:
+<list>
<item>
<p>
Setup the co-maintainer with access to the sources you build the
should subscribe themselves to the appropriate source package.</p>
</item>
</list></p>
+ <p>
+Collaborative maintenance can often be further eased with the use of
+tools on Alioth (see <ref id="alioth">).
</sect>
+ <sect id="testing">
+ <heading>The testing distribution</heading>
+ <p>
+ <sect1 id="testing-basics">
+ <heading>Basics</heading>
+ <p>
+Packages are usually installed into the `testing' distribution after they
+have undergone some degree of testing in unstable.
+ <p>
+They must be in sync on all architectures and
+mustn't have dependencies that make them uninstallable; they also have to
+have generally no known release-critical bugs at the time they're
+installed into testing.
+This way, `testing' should always be close to being a release candidate.
+Please see below for details.
+ <sect1 id="testing-unstable">
+ <heading>Updates from unstable</heading>
+ <p>
+The scripts that update the <em>testing</em> distribution are run each
+day after the installation of the updated packages. They generate the
+<file>Packages</file> files for the <em>testing</em> distribution, but
+they do so in an intelligent manner trying to avoid any inconsistency
+and trying to use only non-buggy packages.
+ <p>
+The inclusion of a package from <em>unstable</em> is conditional on
+the following:
+<list>
+ <item>
+The package must have been available in <em>unstable</em> for 2, 5 or 10
+days, depending on the urgency (high, medium or low).
+Please note that the urgency is sticky, means that the highest
+urgency uploaded since the last testing transition is taken into account.
+Those delays may be doubled during a freeze, or testing transition may be
+switched off at all;
+ <item>
+It must have less release-critical bugs than the version available
+in <em>testing</em>;
+ <item>
+It must be available on all architectures on which it has been
+previously built in unstable. <ref id="madison"> may be of interest to
+check that information;
+ <item>
+It must not break any dependency of a package that is already available
+in <em>testing</em>;
+ <item>
+The packages on which it depends must either be available in <em>testing</em>
+or they must be accepted into <em>testing</em> at the same time (and they will
+if they respect all the necessary criteria);
+</list>
+ <p>
+To find out whether a package is progressing into testing or not, see the
+testing script output on the <url name="web page of the testing distribution"
+id="&url-testing-maint;">, or use the program <prgn>grep-excuses</prgn>
+which is in the <package>devscripts</package> package. This utility can
+easily be used in a <manref name="crontab" section="5"> to keep one
+informed of the progression of their packages into <em>testing</em>.
+ <p>
+The <file>update_excuses</file> file does not always give the precise reason
+why the package is refused, one may have to find it on their own by looking
+for what would break with the inclusion of the package. The
+<url id="&url-testing-maint;" name="testing web page"> gives some more
+information about the usual problems which may be causing such troubles.
+ <p>
+Sometimes, some packages never enter <em>testing</em> because the set of
+inter-relationship is too complicated and cannot be sorted out
+by the scripts. See below for details.
+ <p>
+Some further dependency analysis is shown on
+<url id="http://bjorn.haxx.se/debian/"> - but be warned, they show also
+the build dependencies that are not considered by britney.
+
+ <sect2 id="outdated">
+ <heading>out-of-date</heading>
+ <p>
+For the testing migration script, "outdated" means: There are different
+versions in unstable for the release architectures (except for the
+architectures in fuckedarches; fuckedarches is an list of architectures
+that don't keep up (in update_out.py), but currently, it's empty).
+"outdated" has nothing whatsoever to do with the architectures this package
+has in testing.
+ <p>
+Consider this example:
+ <p>
+ <tt>
+ foo | alpha | arm
+---------+-------+----
+testing | 1 | -
+unstable | 1 | 2
+</tt>
+ <p>
+The package is out of date on alpha in unstable, and will not go to
+testing. And removing foo from testing would not help at all, the package
+is still out of date on alpha, and will not propagate to testing.
+ <p>
+However, if ftp-master removes a package in unstable (here on arm):
+ <p>
+ <tt>
+foo | alpha | arm | hurd-i386
+---------+-------+-----+----------
+testing | 1 | 1 | -
+unstable | 2 | - | 1
+ </tt>
+ <p>
+In this case, the package is up to date on all release architectures in
+unstable (and the extra hurd-i386 doesn't matter, as it's not a release
+architecture).
+ <p>
+Sometimes, the question is raised if it is possible to allow packages in
+that are not yet built on all architectures: No. Just plainly no. (Except
+if you maintain glibc or so.)
+
+ <sect2 id="removals">
+ <heading>Removals from testing</heading>
+ <p>
+Sometimes, a package is removed to allow another package in: This happens
+only to allow _another_ package to go in, that's ready in every other
+sense. Consider e.g. that a conflicts with the new version of b; than a may
+be removed to allow b in.
+ <p>
+Of course, there is another reason to remove a package from testing: It's
+just too buggy (and having a single RC-bug is enough to be in this state).
+
+ <sect2 id="circular">
+ <heading>circular dependencies</heading>
+ <p>
+A situation that is not handled very well by britney is if package a
+depends on the new version of package b, and vice versa.
+ <p>
+An example of this is:
+ <p>
+ <tt>
+ | testing | unstable
+--+-----------------+------------
+a | 1; depends: b=1 | 2; depends: b=2
+b | 1; depends: a=1 | 2; depends: a=2
+ </tt>
+ <p>
+Package a is not considered for update, and package b also not.
+ <p>
+Currently, this requires some manual hinting from the release masters.
+Please, send mail to debian-release@lists.debian.org if that happens to
+one of your packages.
+
+
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>influence of package in testing</heading>
+ <p>
+Generally, there is nothing that the status of a package in testing means
+for transition of the next version from unstable to testing, with two
+exceptions: If the RC-bugginess of the package goes down, it may go in
+even if it is still RC-buggy. The second exception is if the version
+of the package in testing is out of sync on the different arches: Then
+any arch might just upgrade to the version of the source package;
+however, this can happen only if the package was previously forced
+through, or the arch is in fuckedarches.
+ <p>
+In summary this means: The only influence that a package being in testing
+has on a new version of the same package is that the new version might
+go in easier.
+
+ <sect2 id="details">
+ <heading>details</heading>
+ <p>
+If you are interested in details, this is how britney works:
+ <p>
+The packages are looked at to determine whether they are valid
+candidates. This gives the "update excuses". The most common reasons
+why a package is not considered are too young, RC-bugginess and out of
+date on some arches. For this part, the release managers have hammers
+of any size to force britney to consider a package. (Also, the base
+freeze is coded in that part of britney.) (There is a similar thing
+for binary-only updates, but this is not described here. If you're
+interessted in that, please use the code.)
+ <p>
+Now, the more complex part happens: Britney tries to update testing with
+the valid candidates; first, each package alone, and then larger and even
+larger sets of packages together. Each try is accepted if sarge is not
+more uninstallable after the update as before. (Before and after this part,
+some hints are processed; but as only release masters can hint, this is
+probably not so important for you.)
+ <p>
+If you want to see more details, you can look it up on
+merkel:/org/ftp.debian.org/testing/update_out/ (or there in
+~aba/testing/update_out to see a setup with a smaller packages file). Via
+web, it's at <url
+id="http://ftp-master.debian.org/testing/update_out_code/">
+ <p>
+The hints are available via <url
+id="http://ftp-master.debian.org/testing/hints/">.
+
+
+ <sect1 id="t-p-u">
+ <heading>Direct updates to testing</heading>
+ <p>
+The testing distribution is fed with packages from unstable according to the rules
+explained above. However, in some cases, it is necessary to upload
+packages built only for testing. For that, you may want to
+upload to <em>testing-proposed-updates</em>.
+ <p>
+Keep in mind that packages uploaded there are not automatically processed, they
+have to go through the hands of the release manager. So you'd better have a good
+reason to upload there. In order to know what a good reason is in the
+release manager's eyes, you should read the instructions that he regularly
+gives on &email-debian-devel-announce;.
+ <p>
+You should not upload to <em>testing-proposed-updates</em> when you can update your
+packages through <em>unstable</em>. If you can't (for example because you have a
+newer development version in unstable), you may use it but it is recommended to ask
+the authorization of the release manager before. Even if a package is
+frozen, updates through unstable are possible, if the upload via unstable
+does not pulls an new dependency in.
+ <p>
+Version numbers are usually selected by adding the codename of the testing
+distribution and a incrementing number, like 1.2sarge1 for the first upload
+through testing-proposed-updates of the package version 1.2.
+
+
+ <sect1 id="faq">
+ <heading>Frequently asked questions</heading>
+ <p>
+ <sect2 id="rc">
+ <heading>What are release-critical bugs, and how do they get counted?</heading>
+ <p>
+All bugs of some higher severities are by default considered release-critical; currently, these are critical, grave and serious bugs.
+ <p>
+Such bugs are presumed to have an impact on the chances that the package will be released with the stable release of Debian: in general, if a package has open release-critical bugs filed on it, it won't get into "testing", and consequently won't be released in "stable".
+ <p>
+The "testing" bug count for a package is considered to be roughly the bug count at the last point when the "testing" version equalled the "unstable" version. The bugs tagged woody or sarge will not be counted. Bugs with the sid tag will be counted, though.
+
+
+ <sect2>
+ <heading>How could installing a package into "testing" possibly break other packages?</heading>
+ <p>
+The structure of the distribution archives is such that they can only contain one version of a package; a package is defined by its name. So, when the source package acmefoo is installed into "testing", along with its binary packages acme-foo-bin, acme-bar-bin, libacme-foo1 and libacme-foo-dev, the old version is removed.
+ <p>
+However, the old version may have provided a binary package with an old soname of a library, such as libacme-foo0. Removing the old acmefoo will remove libacme-foo0, which will break any packages which depend on it.
+ <p>
+Evidently, this mainly affects packages which provide changing sets of binary packages in different versions (in turn, mainly libraries). However, it will also affect packages upon which versioned dependencies have been declared of the ==, <= or << varieties.
+ <p>
+When the set of binary packages provided by a source package change in this way, all the packages that depended on the old binaries will have to be updated to depend on the new binaries instead. Because installing such a source package into "testing" breaks all the packages that depended on it in "testing", some care now has to be taken: all the depending packages must be updated and ready to be installed themselves so that they won't be broken, and, once everything is ready, manual intervention by the release manager or an assistant is normally required.
+ <p>
+If you are having problems with complicated groups of packages like this, contact debian-devel or debian-release for help.
+ </sect>
<chapt id="best-pkging-practices">
<heading>Best Packaging Practices</heading>
<heading>Separating your patches into multiple files</heading>
<p>
Big, complex packages may have many bugs that you need to deal with.
-If you correct a number of bug directly in the source, if you're not
+If you correct a number of bugs directly in the source, and you're not
careful, it can get hard to differentiate the various patches that you
applied. It can get quite messy when you have to update the package
to a new upstream version which integrates some of the fixes (but not
<p>
The following practices are relevant to the
<file>debian/control</file> file. They supplement the <url
-id="&url-debian-policy;ch-miscellaneous.html#s-descriptions"
+id="&url-debian-policy;ch-binary.html#s-descriptions"
name="Policy on package descriptions">.
<p>
The description of the package, as defined by the corresponding field
<example><var>package-name</var> are <var>synopsis</var>.</example>
-This way of forming a sentance from the package name and synopsis
+This way of forming a sentence from the package name and synopsis
should be considered as a heuristic and not a strict rule. There are
-some cases where it doesn't make sense to try to form a sentance.
+some cases where it doesn't make sense to try to form a sentence.
</sect1>
<sect1 id="bpp-pkg-desc">
for <file>debian/control</file> files:
<example>ispell -d american -g debian/control</example>
+ <p>
+User usually expect these questions to be answered in the package
+description.
+ <list>
+ <item>
+What does the package do? If it is an add-on to another package,
+then the short description of the package we are an add on to
+should be put in here.
+ <item>
+Why should I want this package? This is related to the above,
+but not the same (this is a mail user agent; this is cool, fast,
+interfaces with pgp and ldap and imap, has features X, Y, and Z).
+ <item>
+If this package should not be installed directly, but is pulled in
+by another package, this should be mentioned.
+ <item>
+If the package is experimental, or there are other reasons it
+should not be used, if there are other packages that should be
+used instead, it should be here as well.
+ <item>
+How is this package different from the competition? Is it a better
+implementation? more features? different features? Why should I
+choose this package (2. should talk about the class of packages, and
+this about this particular package, if you have information related to both).
+ </list>
+
</sect1>
Where's the description? If you can't think of a descriptive message,
start by inserting the title of each different bug.
</sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="bpp-news-debian">
+ <heading>Suplimenting changelogs with NEWS.Debian files</heading>
+ <p>
+Important news about changes in a package can also be put in NEWS.Debian
+files. The news will be displayed by tools like apt-listchanges, before
+all the rest of the changelogs. This is the preferred means to let the user
+know about significant changes in a package. It is better than using
+debconf notes since it is less annoying and the user can go back and refer
+to the NEWS.Debian file after the install. And it's better than listing
+major changes in README.Debian, since the user can easily miss such notes.
+ <p>
+The file format is the same as a debian changelog file, but leave off
+the asterisks and describe each news item with a full paragraph when
+necessary rather than the more concise summaries that would go in a
+changelog. It's a good idea to run your file through dpkg-parsechangelog to
+check its formatting as it will not be automatically checked during build
+as the changelog is. Here is an example of a real NEWS.Debian file:
+<example>
+cron (3.0pl1-74) unstable; urgency=low
+
+ The checksecurity script is no longer included with the cron package:
+ it now has its own package, "checksecurity". If you liked the
+ functionality provided with that script, please install the new
+ package.
+
+ -- Steve Greenland <stevegr&debian.org> Sat, 6 Sep 2003 17:15:03 -0500
+</example>
+ <p>
+The NEWS.Debian file is installed as
+/usr/share/doc/<package>/NEWS.Debian.gz. It is compressed, and
+always has that name even in Debian native packages. If you use debhelper,
+dh_installchangelogs will install debian/NEWS files for you.
+ <p>
+Unlike changelog files, you need not update NEWS.Debian files with every
+release. Only update them if you have something particularly newsworthy
+that user should know about. If you have no news at all, there's no need
+to ship a NEWS.Debian file in your package. No news is good news!
</sect>
<!--
future.
<p>
Debconf is a great tool but it is often poorly used. Many common mistakes
-are listed in the <manref name="debconf-devel" section="8"> man page.
+are listed in the <manref name="debconf-devel" section="7"> man page.
It is something that you must read if you decide to use debconf.
</sect>
<prgn>lintian</prgn> or <prgn>linda</prgn> (see <ref id="tools-lint">)
when run over the entire Debian archive.
</sect1>
- </sect>
+
+ <sect1 id="bpp-locale">
+ <heading>Needing a certain locale during build</heading>
+ <p>
+If you need a certain locale during build, you can create a temporary
+file via this trick:
+ <p>
+If you set LOCPATH to the equivalent of /usr/lib/locale, and LC_ALL to
+the name of the locale you generate, you should get what you want
+without being root. Something like this:
+
+<example>
+LOCALE_PATH=debian/tmpdir/usr/lib/locale
+LOCALE_NAME=en_IN
+LOCALE_CHARSET=UTF-8
+
+mkdir -p $LOCALE_PATH
+localedef -i "$LOCALE_NAME.$LOCALE_CHARSET" -f "$LOCALE_CHARSET" "$LOCALE_PATH/$LOCALE_NAME.$LOCALE_CHARSET"
+
+# Using the locale
+LOCPATH=$LOCALE_PATH LC_ALL=$LOCALE_NAME.$LOCALE_CHARSET date
+</example>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="bpp-transition">
+ <heading>Make transition packages deborphan compliant</heading>
+ <p>
+Deborphan is a program helping users to detect which packages can be safely
+removed from the system, i.e. the ones that have no packages depending on
+them. The default operation is to search only within the libs and oldlibs
+sections, to hunt down unused libraries. But when passed the right argument,
+it tries to catch other useless packages.
+ <p>
+For example, with --guess-dummy, tries to search all transitional packages
+which were needed for upgrade but which can now safely be removed. For that,
+it looks for the string "dummy" or "transitional" in their short
+description.
+ <p>
+So, when you are creating such a package, please make sure to add this text
+to your short description. If you are looking for example, just run:
+ <example>apt-cache search .|grep dummy</example> or
+ <example>apt-cache search .|grep transitional</example>.
+ </sect1>
+
+ </sect>
</chapt>
haven't registered out of the system, so to speak. On the other hand,
it is also possible that they just need a reminder.
<p>
+There is a simple system (the MIA database) in which information about
+maintainers who are deemed inactive are recorded. When a member of the
+QA group contacts an inactive maintainer or finds more information about
+them, this is recorded in the MIA database. This system is available
+in /org/qa.debian.org/mia on the host qa.debian.org, and can be queried
+with a tool known as <prgn>mia-history</prgn>. By default,
+<prgn>mia-history</prgn> shows information about every person it knows
+about, but it accepts regular expressions as arguments which it uses to
+match user names. <example>mia-history --help</example> shows which
+arguments are accepted. If you find that no information has been recorded
+about an inactive maintainer already, or that you can add more information,
+you will generally proceed as follows.
+ <p>
The first step is to politely contact the maintainer, and wait for a
response, for a reasonable time. It is quite hard to define "reasonable
time", but it is important to take into account that real life is sometimes
non-Debian mailing lists or news groups.
</list>
<p>
-One big problem are packages which were sponsored -- the maintainer is not
+One big problem are packages which were sponsored — the maintainer is not
an official Debian developer. The echelon information is not available for
sponsored people, for example, so you need to find and contact the Debian
developer who has actually uploaded the package. Given that they signed the
People on this alias will use the information you provided in order to
decide how to proceed. For example, they might orphan one or all of the
packages of the maintainer. If a packages has been NMUed, they might prefer
-to contact the NMUer before orphaning the package -- perhaps the person who
+to contact the NMUer before orphaning the package — perhaps the person who
has done the NMU is interested in the package.
<p>
One last word: please remember to be polite. We are all volunteers and
cannot dedicate all of our time to Debian. Also, you are not aware of the
circumstances of the person who is involved. Perhaps they might be
-seriously ill or might even had died -- you do not know who may be on the
-receiving side -- imagine how a relative will feel if they read the e-mail
+seriously ill or might even had died — you do not know who may be on the
+receiving side — imagine how a relative will feel if they read the e-mail
of the deceased and find a very impolite, angry and accusing message!)
<p>
On the other hand, although we are volunteers, we do have a responsibility.
-So you can stress the importance of the greater good -- if a maintainer does
+So you can stress the importance of the greater good — if a maintainer does
not have the time or interest anymore, they should "let go" and give the
package to someone with more time.
email before the package is in acceptable shape. Being a sponsor
means being a mentor.
<p>
-Once the package meets Debian standards, build the package with
-<example>dpkg-buildpackage -us -uc</example> and sign it
-with <example>debsign -m"<var>FULLNAME</var> <var>email-addr</var>" <var>changes-file</var></example>
-before uploading it to the incoming directory.
+Once the package meets Debian standards, build and sign it with
+<example>dpkg-buildpackage -k<var>KEY-ID</var></example>
+before uploading it to the incoming directory. Of course, you can also
+use any part of your <var>KEY-ID</var>, as long as it's uniq in your
+secret keyring.
<p>
The Maintainer field of the <file>control</file> file and the
<file>changelog</file> should list the person who did the packaging, i.e., the
Application Managers"> at the Debian web site.
+ <chapt id="l10n">Internationalizing, translating, being internationalized
+ and being translated
+ <p>
+Debian supports an ever-increasing number of natural languages. Even if you are
+native English speaker and do not speak any other language, it is part of your
+duty as a maintainer to be aware of issues of internationalization (abbreviated
+i18n because there are 18 letters between the 'i' and the 'n' in
+internationalization). Therefore, even if you are ok with English only
+programs, you should read most of this chapter.
+ <p>
+According to <url id="http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/intro-i18n/"
+name="Introduction to i18n"> from Tomohiro KUBOTA, "I18N (internationalization)
+means modification of a software or related technologies so that a software can
+potentially handle multiple languages, customs, and so on in the world." while
+"L10N (localization) means implementation of a specific language for an already
+internationalized software."
+ <p>
+l10n and i18n are tied, but the difficulties related to each of them are very
+different. It's not really difficult to allow a program to change the language
+in which texts are displayed based on user settings, but it is very time
+consuming to actually translate these messages. On the other hand, setting the
+character encoding is trivial, but adapting the code to use several character
+encodings is a really hard problem.
+ <p>
+Letting alone the i18n problems, where no general receipt exist, there is
+actually no central infrastructure for l10n within Debian which could be
+compared to the dbuild mechanism for porting. So, most of the work has to be
+done manually.
+
+
+ <sect id="l10n-handling">How translations are handled within Debian
+ <p>
+Handling translation of the texts contained in a package is still a manual
+task, and the process depends on the kind of text you want to see translated.
+ <p>
+For program messages, the gettext infrastructure is used most of the time.
+Most of the time, the translation is handled upstream within projects like the
+<url id="http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/contrib/po/HTML/" name="Free Translation
+Project">, the <url id="http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/" name="Gnome
+translation Project"> or the <url id="http://i18n.kde.org/" name="KDE one">.
+The only centralized resource within Debian is the <url
+id="http://www.debian.org/intl/l10n/" name="Central Debian translation
+statistics">, where you can find some statistics about the translation files
+found in the actual package, but no real infrastructure to ease the translation
+process.
+ <p>
+An effort to translate the package descriptions started long ago even if very
+few support is offered by the tools to actually use them (ie, only APT can use
+them, when configured correctly). There is nothing to do for the maintainers,
+and the translators should use the <url id="http://ddtp.debian.org/"
+name="DDTP">.
+ <p>
+For debconf templates, maintainer should use the po-debconf package to ease the
+work of translators, which could use the DDTP to do their work (but French and
+Brazilian teams don't). Some statistics can be found both on the DDTP site
+(about what is actually translated), and on the <url
+id="http://www.debian.org/intl/l10n/" name="Central Debian translation
+statistics"> site (about what is integrated in the packages).
+ p>
+For web pages, each l10n team has access to the relevant CVS, and the statistics
+are available from the Central Debian translation statistics site.
+ <p>
+For general documentation about Debian, the process is more or less the same
+than for the web pages (the translators have an access to the CVS), but there is
+no statistics pages.
+ <p>
+For package specific documentation (man pages, info document, other formats),
+almost everything have yet to be done. Most notably, the KDE project handles
+translation of its documentation in the same way as its program messages.
+Debian specific man pages begin to be handled within a <url
+id="http://cvs.debian.org/manpages/?cvsroot=debian-doc" name="specific CVS
+repository"> .
+
+
+ <sect id="l10n-faqm">I18N & L10N FAQ for maintainers
+ <p>
+This is a list of problems that maintainers may face concerning i18n and l10n.
+While reading this, keep in mind that there is no real consensus on those
+points within Debian, and that they are only advices. If you have a better idea
+for a given problem, or if you disagree on some points, feel free to provide
+your feedback, so that this document can be enhanced.
+
+ <sect1 id="l10n-faqm-tr">How to get a given text translated?
+ <p>
+To translate package description or debconf templates, you have nothing to do,
+the DDTP infrastructure will dispatch the material to translate to volunteers
+with no need for interaction from your part.
+ <p>
+For all other material (gettext files, man pages or other documentation), the
+best solution is to put your text somewhere on Internet, and ask on debian-i18n
+for a translation in the different languages. Some translation team members are
+subscribed to this list, and they will take care of the translation and of the
+reviewing process. Once done, you will get your translated document from them
+in your mailbox.
+
+ <sect1 id="l10n-faqm-rev">How to get a given translation reviewed?
+ <p>
+>From time to time, individuals translate some texts included in your package
+and will ask you for inclusion in the package. This can become problematic if
+you are not fluent in the given language. It is a good idea to send the
+document to the corresponding l10n mailing list, asking for a review. Once it
+has been done, you should feel more confident in the quality of the
+translation, and include it fearlessly into your package.
+
+ <sect1 id="l10n-faqm-update">How to get a given translation updated?
+ <p>
+If you have some translations of a given text laying around, each time you
+update the original, you should kindly ask to the previous translator to update
+his/her work to make the translation up to date with regard to the current
+original text. Keep in mind that this task takes time, at least one week to get
+the update reviewed and all.
+ <p>
+If the translator is unresponsive, you may ask for help to the corresponding
+l10n mailing list. If everything fails, don't forget to put a warning in the
+translated document, stating that the translation is somehow outdated, and that
+the reader should refer to the original document if possible.
+ <p>
+Avoid removing completely a translation because it is outdated. An old
+documentation is often better than no documentation at all for non-English
+speaker.
+
+ <sect1 id="l10n-faqm-bug">How to handle a bug report concerning a translation?
+ <p>
+The best solution may be to mark the bug as "forwarded to upstream", and
+forward it to both the previous translator and his/her team (using the
+corresponding debian-l10n-XXX mailing list).
+
+ <sect id="l10n-faqtr">I18N & L10N FAQ for translators
+ <p>
+While reading this, please keep in mind that there is no general procedure
+within Debian concerning those points, and that in any case, you should
+collaborate with your team and the package maintainer.
+
+ <sect1 id="l10n-faqtr-help">How to help the translation effort?
+ <p>
+Choose what you want to translate, make sure that nobody is already working on
+it (using your debian-l10n-XXX mailing list), translate it, get it reviewed by
+other native speakers on your l10n mailing list, and provide it to the
+maintainer of the package (see next point).
+
+ <sect1 id="l10n-faqtr-inc">How to provide a translation for inclusion in a package?
+ <p>
+Make sure your translation is correct (asking for review on your l10n mailing
+list) before providing it for inclusion. It will save time for everyone, and
+avoid the chaos resulting in having several versions of the same document in
+bug reports.
+ <p>
+The best solution is to fill a regular bug containing the translation against
+the package. Make sure to use the 'PATCH' tag, and to not use a gravity higher
+than 'wishlist', since the lack of translation never prevented a program from
+running.
+
+ <sect id="l10n-best">Best current practice concerning l10n
+ <p>
+<list>
+ <item>
+As a maintainer, never edit the translations in any way (even to reformat the
+layout) without asking to the corresponding l10n mailing list. You risk for
+example to break the encoding of the file by doing so. Moreover, what you
+consider as an error can be right (or even needed) in the given language.
+ <item>
+As a translator, if you find an error in the original text, make sure to report
+it. Translators are often the most attentive readers of a given text, and if
+they don't report the errors they find, nobody will.
+ <item>
+In any case, remember that the major issue with l10n is that it requires
+several people to cooperate, and that it is very easy to start a flamewar about
+small problems because of misunderstanding. So, if you have problems with your
+interlocutor, ask for help on the corresponding l10n mailing list, on
+debian-i18n, or even on debian-devel (but beware, l10n discussions very often
+become flamewars on that list :)
+ <item>
+In any case, cooperation can only be achieved with <strong>mutual respect</strong>.
+</list>
+
<appendix id="tools">Overview of Debian Maintainer Tools
<p>
<package>yada</package> is another packaging helper tool. It uses a
<file>debian/packages</file> file to auto-generate
<file>debian/rules</file> and other necessary files in the
-<file>debian/</file> subdirectory.
- <p>
-Note that <package>yada</package> is called "essentially unmaintained"
-by it's own maintainer, Charles Briscoe-Smith. As such, it can be
-considered deprecated.
+<file>debian/</file> subdirectory. The <file>debian/packages</file> file
+contains instruction to build packages and there is no need to create any
+<file>Makefile</file> files. There is possibility to
+use macro engine similar to the one used in SPECS files from RPM
+source packages.</p>
+ <p>
+For more informations see
+<tt><url id="http://yada.alioth.debian.org/" name="YADA site"></tt>.</p>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="equivs">
possibility of running <prgn>dinstall</prgn> in dry-run mode after the
upload.
</sect1>
+ <sect1 id="dcut">
+ <heading><package>dcut</package></heading>
+ <p>
+The <package>dcut</package> script (part of the package <ref id="dput">)
+helps in removing files from the ftp upload directory.
+ </sect1>
</sect>
<sect id="tools-maint-automate">
~ianmdlvl / developers-reference.git / blobdiff