r61337 - /website/policy.pod

[gregoa at users.alioth.debian.org]

Author: gregoa
Date: Sat Aug  7 00:24:31 2010
New Revision: 61337

URL: http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/?sc=1&rev=61337
Log:
new item Build and runtime dependencies

Modified:
    website/policy.pod

Modified: website/policy.pod
URL: http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/website/policy.pod?rev=61337&op=diff
==============================================================================
--- website/policy.pod (original)
+++ website/policy.pod Sat Aug  7 00:24:31 2010
@@ -107,6 +107,35 @@
 Contains the list of contributors to the specific package, i.e. persons
 interested in co-maintaining it in the future.
 
+=item Build and runtime dependencies
+
+We try to support backporting our packages to oldstable/stable where
+possible. This effects handling of dual-lifed modules and versioned (build)
+dependencies.
+
+=over
+
+=item
+
+For dual-lifed modules this means writing (build) dependencies as
+e.g. I<"perl (E<gt>= 5.10.1) | libtest-simple-perl (E<gt>= 0.88)">.
+
+=item
+
+Regarding dependency versions this means adding versions when a package with
+an older version is still in oldstable or stable. Versions that are already
+fulfilled by the oldest release in the archive should be left out.
+
+=back
+
+At some point (usually a year after a release) oldstable will be removed
+from the archive; at that point support for backporting to oldstable becomes
+moot.
+
+Helpful tools: "B<rmadison> I<package>" for seeing the package releases in all
+archive areas; "B<corelist -a> I<Module::Name>" to find out when a dual-lifed
+module was integrated into perl core.
+
 =item Vcs-Svn
 
 An URL pointing to the package's base location in our repository. That