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Chapter 4

Source packages

4.1 Standards conformance

Source packages should specify the most recent version number of this policy document with

which your package complied when it was last updated.

This information may be used to file bug reports automatically if your package becomes too

much out of date.

The version is specified in the

Standards Version

control field.

The format of the

Standards Version

field is described in `

Standards Version

' on page

32

.

You should regularly, and especially if your package has become out of date, check for the

newest Policy Manual available and update your package, if necessary. When your package

complies with the new standards you should update the

Standards Version

source pack 

age field and release it.

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4.2 Package relationships

Source packages should specify which binary packages they require to be installed or not to

be installed in order to build correctly. For example, if building a package requires a certain

compiler, then the compiler should be specified as a build time dependency.

It is not necessary to explicitly specify build time relationships on a minimal set of packages

that are always needed to compile, link and put in a Debian package a standard  Hello World! 

program written in C or C++. The required packages are called build essential, and an informa 

tional list can be found in

/usr/share/doc/build essential/list

(which is contained

in the

build essential

package).

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1

See the file

upgrading checklist

for information about policy which has changed between different ver 

sions of this document.

2

Rationale:

  This allows maintaining the list separately from the policy documents (the list does not need the kind of