Based on a message from Guillem Jover.

Charles Plessy authored Mar 01, 2012 and Russ Allbery committed Sep 03, 2012

Closes: 661816

This patch also:

 - Removes mention of the MIME policy.  This is a leftover from its removal.
 - Documents /usr/lib/mime/packages/, and recommends to use binary package
   names as a file names.
 - Cosmetically changes the emphasis on a "should not".

While keeping all the init-related material together would be nice,
it causes section renumbering, which causes other problems.  Move it
to the bottom of that chapter.  We'll fix this when we rewrite all of
Policy and reorder everything.

Steve Langasek authored Jan 09, 2011 and Russ Allbery committed Sep 03, 2012

Add a new section on alternative init systems that outlines the
compatibility requirements for both init replacements and packages shipping
upstart jobs.  Closes: #591791

Jonathan Nieder authored Aug 12, 2012 and Russ Allbery committed Aug 12, 2012

Use "zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.3.3.dfsg-2~)" in the sample shlibs dependency
field to emphasize the backport-friendly convention described in the
sharedlibs-updates section.

Also correct two small typos --- one sentence is uncapitalized and
another missing a noun --- and rephrase a sentence that describes when
to bump the dependency-version to make it easier to read.

Add a footnote explaining what a "reasonable" program is.  Clarify
the shlibs versioning text.  Other minor textual changes for
clarity.

Jonathan Nieder authored Aug 12, 2012 and Russ Allbery committed Aug 12, 2012

subject/verb agreement: s/provide/provides/

Packages with libraries or binaries linking to a shared library must
use symbols or shlibs files to compute their dependencies.  Packages
that dlopen() a shared library should do so as well, but since that
is not typical practice and the tools to do that don't exist, it is
not made a policy "must" yet.

The minimal version for a symbol can be bumped after the version of
the package in which the symbol was introduced.

Add a footnote explaining why shlibs files cannot be used for
libraries with unusual sonames.

The shlibs file for a library udeb goes in the corresponding deb.

The library deb corresponding to a udeb is supposed to provide a
shlibs file, rather than consuming (using) one.

Add "for example" when talking about dpkg-shlibdeps -T.  This is
just an illustration and not meant to be normative.

If a library is used both directly and indirectly, the direct
dependency still needs to be declared.

Backward-compatibility is defined in terms of what reasonable
programs and libraries need.

In the normal case, symbols files go in dpkg's admindir as package
control files.

wording fix: "dependency on" avoids some of the ambiguity in
"dependency of".

Implement the Debian Technical Committee decision in #629385.
Remove the normative documentation of what to do when the targets
aren't provided.  Remove the informative footnote saying that
the build daemons don't support this.

Closes: #374029 (among others)

Charles Plessy authored Jul 14, 2012 and Russ Allbery committed Aug 12, 2012

This also arranged the list as one name per line, in plain text,
alphabetically sorted, for better tracking.

Closes: #670429

Charles Plessy authored Jan 07, 2012 and Russ Allbery committed Aug 12, 2012

Uses Developers's Reference §6.2.5 for inspiration.

Closes: #654958

[jrnieder@gmail.com:
 - declared repositories should be publicly accessible
 - Vcs-Browser should point to a webapp
 - Vcs-<system> should use the version control system's conventional syntax
 - if multiple branches are used for packaging (e.g., "stable",
   "testing", "sid"), any one of them will do
 - for Vcs-Git, "-b <branch>" can be omitted when the intended branch is the
   default branch
 - list some Vcs-<foo> fields by name in the lists in §5.2 and §5.4
 - declared repositories track development of the Debian source
   package, not just the upstream code
 - Vcs-Browser can be a web interface using any protocol (e.g., HTTPS
   is fine)
 - picking a good branch is optional
 Thanks to Russ Allbery for several improvements to the text.]

Charles Plessy authored Dec 29, 2011 and Russ Allbery committed Aug 12, 2012

Thanks to Ansgar Burchardt <ansgar@debian.org>.
Closes: #641153

[jrnieder@gmail.com: with spelling fixes from Jakub Wilk]

Wording: Jakub Wilk <jwilk@debian.org>
Seconded: Cyril Brulebois <kibi@debian.org>
Seconded: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
Closes: #663918

Also minorly reword this section for clarity.

Wording: Russ Allbery <rra@debian.org>
Seconded: Guillem Jover <guillem@debian.org>
Seconded: Salvatore Bonaccorso <carnil@debian.org>
Seconded: Simon McVittie <smcv@debian.org>
Closes: #661933

Retain the dpkg-shlibdeps section in the appendix as a stub pointing
to the main page so that we don't renumber subsequent sections.  Add
more explanation for why dependencies change for each build of a
binary package.  Combine the dpkg-shlibdeps instructions somewhat and
mention that debian/substvars is only a default.

Pull out lots of information that's shared between symbols and shlibs
into new sections directly under shared library dependencies.  Make
both symbols and shlibs subsections of that section.  Flesh out the
documentation of how to choose between symbols and shlibs and what the
differences in the systems are.

Document that C++ libraries may be better off with shlibs and don't
deprecate shlibs quite as much.

Move the information on how to determine the shared library soversion
to the runtime shared library section where it's now primarily used,
and reference it in the shlibs section.

* Convert debian/copyright to copyright-format 1.0, and in the process
  add the license information for the documents other than Policy itself
  and the FHS.  Note the implication of the GPL source code requirement
  for distributing generated versions of the Policy documents.

* Embed the Debian Policy version and build date in the debconf
  specification and the copyright-format document.  We'll make
  non-normative changes without updating other version numbers, and it's
  good to know which version one is looking at.
* Fix some whitespace issues in the debconf specification articleinfo.

* Fix the legal notice in copyright-format to not refer to a nonexistent
  copyright notice.

Thanks to Jonathan Nieder for the improvement.

* Update the dpkg-buildpackage -r documentation in the appendix to
  reflect the current behavior of using fakeroot.  Wording from Sam
  Morris.  (Closes: #658009)