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+ <!-- common, language independent entities -->
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- <!ENTITY cvs-rev "$Revision: 1.221 $">
+ <!ENTITY cvs-rev "$Revision: 1.232 $">
+
<!-- if you are translating this document, please notate the CVS
- revision of the developers reference here -->
- <!--
- <!ENTITY cvs-en-rev "X.YY">
- -->
+ revision of the original developer's reference in cvs-en-rev -->
+ <!-- <!ENTITY cvs-en-rev "X.YZW"> -->
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<!ENTITY FIXME "<em>FIXME:</em> ">
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
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>
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
+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
<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.
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>
(<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
to make sure everything in this distribution is working properly, it is
sometimes literally unstable.
<p>
-<qref id="testing">"testing"</qref> 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
<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 <bb>-v</bb> to <bb>dpkg-buildpackage</bb>
+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>
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
`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">
<heading>Special case: uploads to the <em>stable</em> distribution</heading>
verbose, if necessary) in your changelog entries for uploads to
<em>stable</em>, because otherwise the package won't be considered for
inclusion.
+ <p>
+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-proposed-updates</em></heading>
<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;.
- <p>
-If you want to use the feature described in <ref id="delayed-incoming">,
-you'll have to upload to <tt>ftp-master</tt>. It is the only upload
-point that supports delayed incoming.
+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>
- <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;">.
- <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>
+ <sect1 id="delayed-incoming">Delayed uploads
<p>
-Another upload queue is available in Germany: just upload the files
-via anonymous FTP to <url id="&url-upload-erlangen;">.
+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>
-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
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
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 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.
Always include an external reference, preferably a CVE
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">)
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>
<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
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>
<!--
<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, ie 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 transitionnal 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 ssuch 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.
<p>
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.
+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>
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