X-Git-Url: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/ucgi/~ianmdlvl/git?p=developers-reference.git;a=blobdiff_plain;f=developers-reference.sgml;h=0b0de53fac9614ff1b7301e56bd6819a400ff0e0;hp=a81d9ee01943a074bbbcac8bb288c19ec2a159e9;hb=d8f60cb36cd4fd22d02851d4465749f4233391da;hpb=2742119937375d66f9bc0e887493923f3ee47b32 diff --git a/developers-reference.sgml b/developers-reference.sgml index a81d9ee..0b0de53 100644 --- a/developers-reference.sgml +++ b/developers-reference.sgml @@ -5,7 +5,7 @@ %commondata; - + @@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
A copy of the GNU General Public License is available as &file-GPL; in
-the Debian GNU/Linux distribution or on the World Wide Web at
+When you know how you want to contribute to &debian-formal;, you
+should get in contact with existing Debian maintainers who are working
+on similar tasks. That way, you can learn from experienced developers.
+For example, if you are interested in packaging existing software for
+Debian you should try to get a sponsor. A sponsor will work together
+with you on your package and upload it to the Debian archive once he
+is 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
+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
+Quality Assurance (QA) work you can join maintainers already working on
+these tasks and submit patches and improvements.
+
-Before you decide to register with the Debian Project, you will need
-to read the
The process of registering as a developer is a process of verifying
-your identity and intentions. As the number of people working on
-Debian GNU/Linux has grown to over &number-of-maintainers; people and
-our systems are used in several very important places we have to be
-careful about being compromised. Therefore, we need to verify new
-maintainers before we can give them accounts on our servers and
-letting them upload packages.
-
-Registration requires that the following information be sent in
-appropriate steps described at
+Before you actually register you should have shown that you can do
+competent work and will be a good contributor. You can show this by
+submitting patches through the Bug Tracking System or having a package
+sponsored by an existing maintainer for a while. Also, we expect that
+contributors are interested in the whole project and not just in
+maintaining their own packages. If you can help other maintainers by
+providing further information on a bug or even a patch, then do so!
+
+Registration requires that you are familiar with Debian's philosophy
+and technical documentation. Furthermore, you need a GPG key which
+has been signed by an existing Debian maintainer. If your GPG key
+is not signed yet, you should try to meet a Debian maintainer in
+person to get your key signed. There's a
If you do not have an OpenPGP key yet, generate one. Every developer
needs a OpenPGP key in order to sign and verify package uploads. You
@@ -187,7 +185,7 @@ or high-powered spy techniques. See for more
information on maintaining your public key.
Debian uses the
-Also remember that one of the names on your key must match the email
-address you list as the official maintainer for your packages. For
-instance, I set the maintainer of the
-
If your public key isn't on public key servers such as &pgp-keyserv;,
please read the documentation available locally in &file-keyservs;.
That document contains instructions on how to put your key on the
public key servers. The New Maintainer Group will put your public key
on the servers if it isn't already there.
-Due to export restrictions by the United States government some Debian
-packages, including
Some countries restrict the use of cryptographic software by their
citizens. This need not impede one's activities as a Debian package
maintainer however, as it may be perfectly legal to use cryptographic
products for authentication, rather than encryption purposes (as is
-the case in France). The Debian Project does not require the use of
+the case in France). &debian-formal; does not require the use of
cryptography qua cryptography in any manner. If you live in a
country where use of cryptography even for authentication is forbidden
then please contact us so we can make special arrangements.
-Once you have all your information ready, and your public key is
-available on public key servers, send a message to
-&email-new-maintainer; to register as an offical Debian developer so
-that you will be able to upload your packages. This message must
-contain your name and your valid e-mail address. All the information
-discussed above is required after your Application Manager is
-assigned. Application Manager is your agent in the registration
-process, and you can always ask him about the status of your
-application. You can check the
+When you have found an advocate, have your GPG key signed and have
+already contributed to Debian for a while, you're ready to apply.
+You can simply register on our
For more details, please consult
-Once this information is received and processed, you should be
-contacted with information about your new Debian maintainer account.
-If you don't hear anything within a month, please send a followup
-message asking if your original application was received. Do
-not re-send your original application, that will just confuse
-the New Maintainer Group. Please be patient, especially near release
-points; mistakes do occasionally happen, and people do sometimes run
-out of volunteer time.
+Maintainer's Corner"> at the Debian web site. Make sure that you
+are familiar with the necessary steps of the New Maintainer process
+before actually applying. If you are well prepared, you can save
+a lot of timer later on.
You have to keep the information available there up to date.
@@ -309,10 +295,14 @@ you're on vacation.
In order to inform the other developers, there's two things that you should do.
First send a mail to &email-debian-private; giving the period of time when
you will be on vacation. You can also give some special instructions on what to
-do if any problem occurs. Next you should update your information
+do if any problem occurs. Be aware that some people don't care for vacation
+notices and don't want to read them; you should prepend "[VAC] " to the
+subject of your message so that it can be easily filtered.
+
+Next you should update your information
available in the Debian LDAP database and mark yourself as ``on vacation''
(this information is only accessible to debian developers). Don't forget
-to remove the ``on vacation'' flag when you come back.
+to remove the ``on vacation'' flag when you come back!
@@ -339,31 +329,46 @@ Release Critical Bugs (RCB) are all bugs that have severity
critical, grave or serious.
Those bugs can delay the Debian release
and/or can justify the removal of a package at freeze time. That's why
-those bugs needs to be corrected as fast as possible. You must be
+these bugs need to be corrected as quickly as possible. You must be
aware that some developers who are part of the
Even though there is a dedicated group of people for Quality
-Assurance, QA duties are not reserved solely to them. You can
-participate in this effort by keeping your packages as bug free as
+Assurance, QA duties are not reserved solely for them. You can
+participate in this effort by keeping your packages as bug-free as
possible, and as lintian-clean (see ) as
-possible. If you think that it's quite impossible, then you should
-consider orphaning (see ) some of your packages so
-that you can do a good job with the other packages that you
-maintain. Alternatively you may ask the help of other people in order
-to catch up the backlog of bugs that you have (you can ask for help on
-&email-debian-qa; or &email-debian-devel;).
+possible. If you do not find that possible, then you should consider
+orphaning some of your packages (see ). Alternatively, you may ask the help of other people
+in order to catch up the backlog of bugs that you have (you can ask
+for help on &email-debian-qa; or &email-debian-devel;).
+
+
+If you notice that a package is lacking maintenance, you should
+make sure the maintainer is active and will continue to work on
+his packages. Try contacting him yourself.
+
+If you do not get a reply after a few weeks you should collect all
+useful information about this maintainer. Start by logging into
+the
+Send all this information to &email-debian-qa;, in order to let the
+QA people do whatever is needed.
@@ -408,8 +413,8 @@ The following are the core Debian mailing lists: &email-debian-devel;,
&email-debian-policy;, &email-debian-user;, &email-debian-private;,
&email-debian-announce;, and &email-debian-devel-announce;. All
developers are expected to be subscribed to at least
-&email-debian-private; and &email-debian-devel-announce;. There are
-other mailing lists are available for a variety of special topics; see
+&email-debian-devel-announce;. There are
+other mailing lists available for a variety of special topics; see
@@ -418,7 +423,10 @@ discussions amongst Debian developers. It is meant to be used for
posts which for whatever reason should not be published publically.
As such, it is a low volume list, and users are urged not to use
&email-debian-private; unless it is really necessary. Moreover, do
-not forward email from that list to anyone.
+not forward email from that list to anyone. Archives of this
+list are not available on the web for obvious reasons, but you can see
+them using your shell account master.debian.org and looking
+in the
&email-debian-email; is a special mailing list used as a grab-bag
for Debian related correspondence such as contacting upstream authors
@@ -469,7 +477,7 @@ full, suspicious activity, or whatever, send an email to
The ftp-master server, ftp-master.debian.org (or
auric.debian.org), holds the canonical copy of the Debian
-archive (excluding the non-U.S. packages). Generally, package uploads
+archive (excluding the non-US packages). Generally, package uploads
go to this server; see .
Problems with the Debian FTP archive generally need to be reported as
@@ -559,7 +567,7 @@ id="&url-devel-machines;">.
-The Debian GNU/Linux distribution consists of a lot of Debian packages
+The &debian-formal; distribution consists of a lot of Debian packages
(.deb's, currently around &number-of-pkgs;) and a few
additional files (documentation, installation disk images, etc.).
@@ -598,10 +606,11 @@ further into subsections.
The main section of the Debian archive is what makes up the
-official Debian GNU/Linux distribution.
-The main section is official because it fully complies with
-all our guidelines. The other two sections do not, to different degrees;
-as such, they are not officially part of Debian GNU/Linux.
+official &debian-formal; distribution. The
+main section is official because it fully complies with all
+our guidelines. The other two sections do not, to different degrees;
+as such, they are not officially part of
+&debian-formal;.
Every package in the main section must fully comply with the
-Debian GNU/Linux 1.3 is only available as i386. Debian 2.0
+&debian-formal; 1.3 is only available as i386. Debian 2.0
shipped for i386 and m68k architectures. Debian 2.1
ships for the i386, m68k, alpha, and
sparc architectures. Debian 2.2 adds support for the
@@ -714,7 +723,7 @@ To summarize, the Debian archive has a root directory within an FTP
server. For instance, at the mirror site,
A distribution is comprised of Debian source and binary packages, and the
respective Sources and Packages index files, containing
@@ -723,9 +732,9 @@ the header information from all those packages. The former are kept in the
directory of the archive (because of backwards compatibility).
-
-There is always a distribution called stable (residing in
+There are always distributions called stable (residing in
dists/stable), one called testing (residing in
dists/testing), and one called unstable (residing in
dists/unstable). This reflects the development process of the
@@ -741,94 +750,91 @@ sometimes ``unstable.''
Packages get copied from unstable to testing if they
satisfy certain criteria. To get into testing distribution, a
-package needs to be in the archive for two weeks and not have any release
-critical bugs. After that period, it will propagate into testing
-as soon as anything it depends on is also added. This process is automatic.
+package needs to be in the archive for two weeks and not have any
+release critical bugs. After that period, it will propagate into
+testing as soon as anything it depends on is also added. This
+process is automatic. You can see some notes on this system as well
+as update_excuses (describing which packages are valid
+candidates, which are not, and why not) at
After a period of development, once the release manager deems fit, the
-testing distribution is renamed to frozen. Once
-that has been done, no changes are allowed to that distribution except
-bug fixes; that's why it's called ``frozen.'' After another month or
-a little longer, depending on the progress, the frozen distribution
+testing distribution is frozen, meaning that the policies
+which control how packages move from unstable to testing are
+tightened. Packages which are too buggy are removed. No changes are
+allowed into testing except for bug fixes. After some time
+has elapsed, depending on progress, the testing distribution
goes into a `deep freeze', when no changes are made to it except those
-needed for the installation system. This is called a ``test cycle'', and it
-can last up to two weeks. There can be several test cycles, until the
-distribution is prepared for release, as decided by the release manager.
-At the end of the last test cycle, the frozen distribution is
-renamed to stable, overriding the old stable distribution,
-which is removed at that time.
+needed for the installation system. This is called a ``test cycle'',
+and it can last up to two weeks. There can be several test cycles,
+until the distribution is prepared for release, as decided by the
+release manager. At the end of the last test cycle, the
+testing distribution is renamed to stable,
+overriding the old stable distribution, which is removed at
+that time (although it can be found at &archive-host;).
This development cycle is based on the assumption that the
unstable distribution becomes stable after passing a
-period of testing as frozen. Even once a distribution is
-considered stable, a few bugs inevitably remain--that's why the stable
-distribution is updated every now and then. However, these updates are
-tested very carefully and have to be introduced into the archive
-individually to reduce the risk of introducing new bugs. You can find
-proposed additions to stable in the proposed-updates
-directory. Those packages in proposed-updates that pass
-muster are periodically moved as a batch into the stable distribution
-and the revision level of the stable distribution is incremented
-(e.g., `1.3' becomes `1.3r1', `2.0r2' becomes `2.0r3', and so forth).
+period of being in testing. Even once a distribution is
+considered stable, a few bugs inevitably remain &mdash that's why the
+stable distribution is updated every now and then. However, these
+updates are tested very carefully and have to be introduced into the
+archive individually to reduce the risk of introducing new bugs. You
+can find proposed additions to stable in the
+proposed-updates directory. Those packages in
+proposed-updates that pass muster are periodically moved as a
+batch into the stable distribution and the revision level of the
+stable distribution is incremented (e.g., `1.3' becomes `1.3r1',
+`2.0r2' becomes `2.0r3', and so forth).
Note that development under unstable continues during the
``freeze'' period, since the unstable distribution remains in
-place when the testing is moved to frozen.
-Another wrinkle is that when the frozen distribution is
-offically released, the old stable distribution is completely removed
-from the Debian archives (although they do live on at
-archive-host;).
-
-In summary, there is always a stable, a testing and an
-unstable distribution available, and a frozen distribution
-shows up for a couple of months from time to time.
-
+place in parallel with testing.
The experimental distribution is a specialty distribution.
It is not a full distribution in the same sense as `stable' and
`unstable' are. Instead, it is meant to be a temporary staging area
for highly experimental software where there's a good chance that the
-software could break your system. Users who download and install
+software could break your system, or software that's just too unstable
+even for the unstable distribution (but there is a reason to
+package it nevertheless). Users who download and install
packages from experimental are expected to have been duly
warned. In short, all bets are off for the experimental
distribution.
-Developers should be very selective in the use of the
-experimental distribution. Even if a package is highly
-unstable, it could still go into unstable; just state a
-few warnings in the description. However, if there is a chance that
-the software could do grave damage to a system, it might be better to
-put it into experimental.
-
-For instance, an experimental encrypted file system should probably go
-into experimental. A new, beta, version of some software
-which uses completely different configuration might go into
-experimental at the maintainer's discretion. New software
-which isn't likely to damage your system can go into
-unstable. If you are working on an incompatible or complex
-upgrade situation, you can also use experimental as a staging
-area, so that testers can get early access.
-
-However, using experimental as a personal staging area is not
-always the best idea. You can't replace or upgrade the files in there
-on your own (it is done with Debian archive maintenance software).
-Additionally, you'll have to remember to ask the archive
-maintainers to delete the package once you have uploaded it to
-unstable. Using your personal web space on
-klecker.debian.org is generally a better idea, so that you put
-less strain on the Debian archive maintainers.
+If there is a chance that the software could do grave damage to a system,
+it is likely to be better to put it into experimental.
+For instance, an experimental compressed file system should probably go
+into experimental.
+
+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 experimental. A new, beta, version of some software
+which uses completely different configuration can go into
+experimental, at the maintainer's discretion. If you are working
+on an incompatible or complex upgrade situation, you can also use
+experimental as a staging area, so that testers can get early
+access.
+
+Some experimental software can still go into unstable, with a few
+warnings in the description, but that isn't recommended because packages
+from unstable are expected to propagate to testing and
+thus to stable.
+
+New software which isn't likely to damage your system can go directly into
+unstable.
+
+An alternative to experimental is to use your personal web space
+on people.debian.org (klecker.debian.org).
Every released Debian distribution has a code name: Debian
1.1 is called `buzz'; Debian 1.2, `rex'; Debian 1.3, `bo'; Debian 2.0,
-`hamm'; Debian 2.1, `slink'; and Debian 2.2, `potato'. There is also
+`hamm'; Debian 2.1, `slink'; Debian 2.2, `potato'; and Debian 3.0, `woody'. There is also
a ``pseudo-distribution'', called `sid', which is the current
`unstable' distribution; since packages are moved from `unstable' to
`testing' as they approach stability, `sid' itself is never released.
@@ -857,14 +863,14 @@ determined by their code names and not their release status (e.g.,
`slink'). These names stay the same during the development period and
after the release; symbolic links, which can be changed easily,
indicate the currently released stable distribution. That's why the
-real distribution directories use the code names, while symbolic
-links for stable, testing, unstable, and
-frozen point to the appropriate release directories.
+real distribution directories use the code names, while
+symbolic links for stable, testing, and
+unstable point to the appropriate release directories.
If you want to create a new package for the Debian distribution, you
should first check the
+Changes that you make to the package need to be recorded in the
+
+The
+Changelog entries can be used to automatically close Debian bugs when
+the package is installed into the archive. See .
+
+It is conventional that the changelog entry notating of a package that
+contains a new upstream version of the software looks like this:
+
+There are tools to help you create entries and finalize the
+
+Before you upload your package, you should do basic testing on it. At
+a minimum, you should try the following activities (you'll need to
+have an older version of the same Debian package around):
+
+Normally, a package should not be uploaded if it causes lintian
+to emit errors (they will start with E).
+
+For more information on
When a package is uploaded to the Debian FTP archive, it must be
accompanied by a .changes file, which gives directions to the
@@ -936,35 +1002,10 @@ All of these fields are mandatory for a Debian upload. See the list
of control fields in the
-Notably, the Distribution field, which originates from the
-
-You should avoid combining `stable' with others because of potential
-problems with library dependencies (for your package and for the package
-built by the build daemons for other architecture).
-Also note that setting the distribution to `stable' means
-that the package will be placed into the proposed-updates
-directory of the Debian archive for further testing before it is actually
-included in stable. The Release Team (which can be reached at
-&email-debian-release;) will decide if your package can be included in
-stable, therefore if your changelog entry is not clear enough, you may
-want to explain them why you uploaded your package to stable by sending
-them a short explication.
+
The first time a version is uploaded which corresponds to a particular
upstream version, the original source tar file should be uploaded and
@@ -987,6 +1028,27 @@ is some reason why this is not the case, the new version of the
original source should be uploaded, possibly by using the -sa
flag.
+
+
+The Distribution field, which originates from the first line of
+the
+There are three possible values for this field: `stable', `unstable',
+and `experimental'. Normally, packages are uploaded into
+unstable.
+
+You should avoid combining `stable' with others because of potential
+problems with library dependencies (for your package and for the package
+built by the build daemons for other architecture).
+See for more information on when and how to
+upload to stable.
+
+It never makes sense to combine the experimental distribution
+with anything else.
+
+
-
-Before you upload your package, you should do basic testing on it. At
-a minimum, you should try the following activities (you'll need to
-have an older version of the same Debian package around):
+
+Uploading to stable means that the package will be placed into the
+proposed-updates directory of the Debian archive for further
+testing before it is actually included in stable.
+
+Extra care should be taken when uploading to stable. Basically, a
+package should only be uploaded to stable if one of the following happens:
-Normally, a package should not be uploaded if it causes lintian
-to emit errors (they will start with E).
-
-For more information on
+It is discouraged to change anything else in the package that isn't
+important, because even trivial fixes can cause bugs later on. Uploading
+new upstream versions to fix security problems is deprecated; applying the
+specific patch from the new upstream version to the old one ("backporting"
+the patch) is the right thing to do in most cases.
+
+Packages uploaded to stable need to be compiled on systems running
+stable, so that their dependencies are limited to the libraries
+(and other packages) available in stable; for example, a package
+uploaded to stable that depends on a library package that only
+exists in unstable will be rejected. Making changes to dependencies of other
+packages (by messing with Provides or shlibs files), possibly making
+those other packages uninstallable, is strongly discouraged.
+
+The Release Team (which can be reached at &email-debian-release;) will
+regularly evaluate the uploads in proposed-updates and decide if
+your package can be included in stable. Please be clear (and
+verbose, if necessary) in your changelog entries for uploads to
+stable, because otherwise the package won't be considered for
+inclusion.
+
+
To upload a package, you need a personal account on
Note: Do not upload to ftp-master packages
-containing software that is export-controlled by the United States
-government, nor to the overseas upload queues on chiark or
-erlangen. This prohibition covers almost all cryptographic
-software, and even sometimes software that contains ``hooks'' to
-cryptographic software, such as electronic mail readers that support
-PGP encryption and authentication. Uploads of such software should go
-to non-us (see ). If you are not
-sure whether U.S. export controls apply to your package, post a
+containing software that is patent-restricted by the United States
+government, nor any cryptographic packages which belong to
+contrib or non-free. If you can't upload it to
+ftp-master, then neither can you upload it to the overseas
+upload queues on chiark or erlangen. Uploads of
+such software should go to non-us (see ). 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.
-You may also find the Debian package
After uploading your package, you can check how the archive maintenance
software will process it by running
As discussed above, export controlled software should not be uploaded
-to ftp-master. Instead, use
-The program
You can check your upload the same way it's done on ftp-master,
with:
Note that U.S. residents or citizens are subject to restrictions on
-export of cryptographic software. As of this writing, U.S. citizens are
-allowed to export some cryptographic software, subject to notification
-rules by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
+export of cryptographic software. As of this writing, U.S. citizens
+are allowed to export some cryptographic software, subject to
+notification rules by the U.S. Department of Commerce. However, this
+restriction has been waived for software which is already available
+outside the U.S. Therefore, any cryptographic software which belongs
+in the main section of the Debian archive and does not depend
+on any package outside of main (e.g., does not depend on
+anything in non-US/main) can be uploaded to ftp-master
+or its queues, described above.
Debian policy does not prevent upload to non-US by U.S. residents or
citizens, but care should be taken in doing so. It is recommended that
@@ -1118,11 +1203,12 @@ developers take all necessary steps to ensure that they are not
breaking current US law by doing an upload to non-US, including
consulting a lawyer.
-For packages in non-US main or contrib, developers should at least
-follow the
This section is for information only and does not constitute legal
advice. Again, it is strongly recommended that U.S. citizens and
@@ -1205,15 +1291,9 @@ send those announcements (check its documentation and look for
If a package is released with the Distribution: set to
`stable', the announcement is sent to &email-debian-changes;. If a
package is released with Distribution: set to `unstable',
-`experimental', or `frozen' (when present), the announcement will be
+or `experimental', the announcement will be
posted to &email-debian-devel-changes; instead.
-On occasion, it is necessary to upload a package to both the
-stable and unstable distributions; this is done by
-putting both distributions in the Distribution: line. In
-such a case the upload announcement will go to both of the above
-mailing lists.
-
The
The Debian archive maintainers are responsible for handling package
uploads. For the most part, uploads are automatically handled on a
-daily basis by archive maintenance tools `dak'
-(also referred to as
In any case, you will receive email notification indicating that the
-package has been uploaded. Please examine this notification
-carefully. You may notice that the package didn't go into the section
-you thought you set it to go into. Read on for why.
+package has added to the archive, which also indicates which bugs will
+be closed by the upload. Please examine this notification carefully,
+checking if any bugs you meant to close didn't get triggered.
+
+The installation notification also includes information on what
+section the package was inserted into. If there is a disparity, you
+will receive a separate email notifying you of that. Read on below.
@@ -1247,11 +1330,20 @@ have control over these fields. The values in the
The archive maintainers keep track of the canonical sections and
-priorities for packages in the override file. Sometimes the
-override file needs correcting. Simply changing the
-package's
+To alter the actual section that a package is put in, you need to
+first make sure that the
For more information about override files, see
This chapter contains information providing guidelines for when and
how NMUs should be done. A fundamental distinction is made between
-source and binary NMUs, which is explained in the next section.
+source and binary-only NMUs, which is explained in the next section.
-There are two new terms used throughout this section: ``binary NMU''
+There are two new terms used throughout this section: ``binary-only NMU''
and ``source NMU''. These terms are used with specific technical
-meaning throughout this document. Both binary and source NMUs are
+meaning throughout this document. Both binary-only and source NMUs are
similar, since they involve an upload of a package by a developer who
is not the official maintainer of that package. That is why it's a
non-maintainer upload.
@@ -1289,24 +1381,27 @@ is not the official maintainer of that package. That is why it's a
A source NMU is an upload of a package by a developer who is not the
official maintainer, for the purposes of fixing a bug in the package.
Source NMUs always involves changes to the source (even if it is just
-a change to
-A binary NMU is a recompilation and upload of a binary package for a
-new architecture. As such, it is usually part of a porting effort. A
-binary NMU is a non-maintainer uploaded binary version of a package
-(often for another architecture), with no source changes required.
-There are many cases where porters must fix problems in the source in
-order to get them to compile for their target architecture; that would
-be considered a source NMU rather than a binary NMU. As you can see,
-we don't distinguish in terminology between porter NMUs and non-porter
-NMUs.
-
-Both classes of NMUs, source and binary, can be lumped by the term
-``NMU''. However, this often leads to confusion, since most people
-think ``source NMU'' when they think ``NMU''. So it's best to be
-careful. In this chapter, if I use the unqualified term ``NMU'', I
-mean both source and binary NMUs.
+a change to
+A binary-only NMU is a recompilation and upload of a binary package
+for a given architecture. As such, it is usually part of a porting
+effort. A binary-only NMU is a non-maintainer uploaded binary version
+of a package, with no source changes required. There are many cases
+where porters must fix problems in the source in order to get them to
+compile for their target architecture; that would be considered a
+source NMU rather than a binary-only NMU. As you can see, we don't
+distinguish in terminology between porter NMUs and non-porter NMUs.
+
+Both classes of NMUs, source and binary-only, can be lumped by the
+term ``NMU''. However, this often leads to confusion, since most
+people think ``source NMU'' when they think ``NMU''. So it's best to
+be careful. In this chapter, if we use the unqualified term ``NMU'',
+we refer to any type of non-maintainer upload NMUs, whether source and
+binary, or binary-only.
Guidelines for when to do a source NMU depend on the target
-distribution, i.e., stable, unstable, or frozen. Porters have
+distribution, i.e., stable, unstable, or experimental. Porters have
slightly different rules than non-porters, due to their unique
circumstances (see ).
-Only critical changes or security bug fixes make it into stable. When
-a security bug is detected, a fixed package should be uploaded as soon
-as possible. In this case, the Debian Security Managers should get in
+When a security bug is detected, a fixed package should be uploaded
+as soon as possible. In this case, the Debian security officers get in
contact with the package maintainer to make sure a fixed package is
uploaded within a reasonable time (less than 48 hours). If the package
maintainer cannot provide a fixed package fast enough or if he/she
-cannot be reached in time, the Security Manager may upload a fixed
+cannot be reached in time, a security officer may upload a fixed
package (i.e., do a source NMU).
-During the release freeze (see ), NMUs which
-fix serious or higher severity bugs are encouraged and accepted.
-Even during this window, however, you should endeavor to reach the
-current maintainer of the package; they might be just about to upload
-a fix for the problem. As with any source NMU, the guidelines found
-in need to be followed.
+During the release cycle (see ), NMUs which fix
+serious or higher severity bugs are encouraged and accepted. Even
+during this window, however, you should endeavor to reach the current
+maintainer of the package; they might be just about to upload a fix
+for the problem. As with any source NMU, the guidelines found in need to be followed.
Bug fixes to unstable by non-maintainers are also acceptable, but only
as a last resort or with permission. Try the following steps first,
@@ -1424,7 +1518,7 @@ the release should start with the debian-revision value
this, you'll have to invoke
Remember, porters who are simply recompiling a package for a different
architecture do not need to renumber. Porters should use new version
@@ -1462,33 +1556,32 @@ simply requires a recompile (i.e., a new shared library is available
to be linked against, a bug was fixed in
If the source NMU (non-maintainer upload) fixes some existing bugs,
-the bugs in the Bug Tracking System which are fixed need to be
-notified but not actually closed by the
-non-maintainer. Technically, only the official package maintainer or
-the original bug submitter are allowed to close bugs. However, the
-person making the non-maintainer release must send a short message to
-the relevant bugs explaining that the bugs have been fixed by the NMU.
-Using
-
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-
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+