Debian Policy uses a formal procedure and a set of BTS usertags to
manage the lifecycle of change proposals. For definitions of those
tags and proposal states and information about what the next step is
for each phase, see Appendix 8 of the Debian Policy Manual, "Debian
Policy changes process."
Given that most changes need to be discussed according to this
process, we have merge requests on salsa turned off. Please submit a
bug to the BTS, either with patches attached, or a reference to a git
branch that is publically fetchable. See "Seeking seconds for a
patch", below, for more details.
Contributing
Driving change proposals
The best way to help is to find an open bug that no-one is currently
driving or shepherding, and help move it through the Policy Changes
Process. If you're not sure whether a bug is being driven along or
shepherded by anyone, you cak ask on the debian-policy mailing list.
seeking additional input from experts on other mailing lists
proposing specific wording changes
producing patches against Policy's current git HEAD
asking parties likely to be interested to review and second patches
Most of this work can be done by people other than the Policy
delegates, and almost every change can be worked on independently of
other changes, so there's lots of opportunities for people to help.
Translations
We have recently begun accepting translations for the Policy Manual.
Please follow the procedures of the localisation team for the language
into which you wish to translate.
When you have a translation for us to merge, it should be committed to
this repository:
DDs can push to this repo's master branch; non-DDs should create merge
requests.
Adding a new language
Add the language code to the LANGUAGES variable in the Makefile.
Install the build-deps for debian-policy.
Run make update-po.
Start translating the files in locales//LC_MESSAGES/.
Add a new binary package for the language, or ask the Policy
Editors to do it for you.
Seeking seconds for a patch
When there is a consensus on the change that should be made, and you
have written a patch implementing that change (i.e. you are moving the
bug from "State C: Proposal" to "State D: Wording proposed" in the
Policy Changes Process), please follow these steps to make it as easy
as possible for others to review your work.
Clone policy.git, make your change, and commit it to a topic
branch.
Push this branch somewhere that is publically cloneable. For
example, you could fork policy.git on salsa.debian.org.
Address an e-mail to the bug, possibly CCing people who you think
are likely to want to second your patch but may not be subscribed
to the debian-policy mailing list.
Set the patch tag on the bug using control: tag -1 + patch, and
indicate in the text of your e-mail that you are seeking seconds.
Include in your e-mail the output of git diff --word-diff=plain
for your change. If your change is particularly large, it might be
more readable not to use --word-diff=plain, but usually the word
diff is better.
Do not quote the output -- many people have mail readers which
will colorise the diff if it is left unmodified.
If you think it would be useful, optionally include in your e-mail
instructions for how to obtain a side-by-side diff of the changes,
by cloning your git repository. For this, the command git
difftool -y -x icdiff is useful.
If you think it would be useful, optionally include in your e-mail
a URL to view a side-by-side diff online -- salsa.debian.org can do
this.
Example
In this example the change is very small, so instructions for
obtaining a side-by-side diff are not really needed. They are
included here just in order to give an example of how it can be done.
To: [email protected]
Control: tag -1 + patch
Hello,
I am seeking seconds for the following patch:
diff --git a/perl-policy.xml b/perl-policy.xml
index 4471d68..fab2fe5 100644
--- a/perl-policy.xml
+++ b/perl-policy.xml
@@ -533,7 +533,7 @@ $(MAKE) OPTIMIZE="-O2 -g -Wall"</screen>
<title>Script Magic</title>
<para>
All packaged perl programs [-must-]{+should+} start with
<literal>#!/usr/bin/perl</literal> and may append such flags as
are required.
</para>
diff --git a/policy/ch-files.rst b/policy/ch-files.rst
index f31a3b4..bc87573 100644
--- a/policy/ch-files.rst
+++ b/policy/ch-files.rst
@@ -186,7 +186,7 @@ All command scripts, including the package maintainer scripts inside the
package and used by ``dpkg``, should have a ``#!`` line naming the shell
to be used to interpret them.
In the case of Perl scripts this [-must-]{+should+} be ``#!/usr/bin/perl``.
When scripts are installed into a directory in the system PATH, the
script name should not include an extension such as ``.sh`` or ``.pl``
=====
To obtain a side-by-side diff:
% git clone salsa.debian.org:someuser/policy.git debian-policy
% cd debian-policy
% git difftool -y -x icdiff master..origin/bug906901
Alternatively, visit
https://salsa.debian.org/someuser/policy/commit/d5979e6f93cfb405101e4a34960aa5b5aa9b6171?view=parallel
Larger projects
There are also some other, larger projects:
Policy contains several appendices which are really documentation of
how parts of the dpkg system works rather than technical
Policy. Those appendices should be removed from the Policy document
and maintained elsewhere, probably as part of dpkg, and any Policy
statements in them moved into the main document. This project will
require reviewing the current contents of the appendices and feeding
the useful bits that aren't currently documented back to the dpkg
team as documentation patches.
If you want to work on any of these projects, please mail the
debian-policy list for more information. We'll be happy to help you
get started.
Maintainers
The Policy Editors are official project delegates with responsibility
for maintaining, and coordinating the updating of, the Debian Policy
Manual, and all the other policy documents released as part of the
"debian-policy" package. All of the delegates do basically the same
tasks. The current delegates are:
Russ Allbery (rra)
Sean Whitton (spwhitton)
The Debian Policy Editors:
Guide the work on the Debian Policy Manual and related documents as
a collaborative process, where developers review and second or
object to proposals, usually on the debian-policy mailing list.
Count seconds and weight objections to proposals, to determine
whether there exists a project consensus on including a change.
Reject, or refer to the Technical Committee, proposals that fail to
reach consensus.
Commit changes to the version control system repository used to
maintain the Debian Policy Manual and related documents.
Maintain the "debian-policy" package. As package maintainers, they
have the last word on package content, releases, bug reports, etc.
Any DD can second proposed wording changes. Everything else can be
done by anyone. Very many other people are active on the Policy
mailing list outside of the Policy Editors.
In addition to the main technical manual, the team currently also maintains:
These documents are all maintained using the Policy Changes Process,
and the current state of all change proposals is tracked using the
debian-policy BTS.
Maintenance procedures
These notes are probably of interest only to the Policy delegates.
Repository layout
The Git repository used for Debian Policy has the following branches:
master:: accepted non-normative changes that will be in the next
upload of the debian-policy package
next:: the current accepted normative changes that will be in the
next release of Policy that raises at least the third component of
the version number
bug-:: changes addressing bug ,
shepherded by
rra:: old history of Russ's arch repository, now frozen
srivasta:: old history of Manoj's arch repository
Continuous integration
On each push to the master branch, a jenkins job is triggered which builds
src:debian-policy's binary packages and installs them to
https://jenkins.debian.net/userContent/debian-policy/
Managing a bug
Some tips for managing bugs:
Create a bug- branch for the bug, where
is the bug number in the BTS and is a
designator of the Policy team member who is shepherding the bug.
Commit wording changes in that branch until consensus is
achieved. It is better not to modify debian/changelog or
upgrading-checklist.xml during this phase. Use the BTS to track who
proposed the wording and who seconded it.
Add the debian/changelog and upgrading-checklist.xml changes, and
commit to the 'next' branch.
Push next out so other people may merge in their own bug branches
without conflicts.
Tag the bug as pending and remove other process tags.
Delete the now-merged branch, both in your local repo and the remote
on salsa.
For the debian/changelog entry, use the following format:
After commits to master have been pushed, either by you or by another
Policy team member, you will generally want to update your working bug
branches. The equivalent of the following commands should do that:
for i in `git show-ref --heads | awk '{print $2}'`; do
j=$(basename $i)
if [ "$j" != "master" ]; then
git checkout $j && git merge master
fi
done
git push --all origin
assuming that you haven't packed the refs in your repository.
Release checklist
Pull any translation updates from
https://salsa.debian.org/dbnpolicy/policy-l10n-merge-requests-here
into 'next' and/or 'master'.
Merge 'next' to 'master' including cleaning up the changelog (git merge
--no-commit is helpful here).
Update .po files:
make update-po && git commit locales -m"update po files"
Policy has a large bug backlog, and each bug against Policy tends to
take considerable time and discussion to resolve. I've found it
useful, when trying to find a place to start, to pick a manageable set
of bugs and set as a target resolving them completely before the next
Policy release. Resolving a bug means one of the following:
Proposing new language to address the bug that's seconded and approved by
the readers of the Policy list following the Policy changes process
(or that's accepted by one of the Policy delegates if the change isn't
normative; i.e., doesn't change the technical meaning of the document).
Determining that the bug is not relevant to Policy and closing it.
Determining that either there is no consensus that the bug indicates
a problem, that the solutions that we can currently come up with are
good solutions, or that Debian is ready for the change. These bugs
are tagged wontfix and then closed after a while. A lot of Policy
bugs fall into this category; just because it would be useful to
have a policy in some area doesn't mean that we're ready to make
one, and keeping the bugs open against Policy makes it difficult to
tell what requires work. If the problem is worth writing a policy
for, it will come up again later when hopefully the project
consensus is more mature.
Anyone can pick bugs and work resolve them. The final determination to
accept a wording change or reject a bug will be made by a Policy
delegate, but if a patch is already written and seconded, or if a
summary of why a bug is not ready to be acted on is already written,
the work is much easier for the Policy delegate.
One of the best ways to help out is to pick one or two bugs (checking
on the Policy list first), say that you'll make resolving them a goal
for the next release, and guide the discussion until the bugs can
reach one of the resolution states above.