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Debian Policy Manual - Chapter 1
About this manual


1.1 Scope

This manual describes the policy requirements for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution. This includes the structure and contents of the Debian archive, several design issues of the operating system, as well as technical requirements that each package must satisfy to be included in the distribution.

This manual does not describe the technical mechanisms involved in package creation, installation, and removal. This information can be found in the Debian Packaging Manual and the Debian System Administrators' Manual.

This document assumes familiarity with these other two manuals. Unfortunately, the System Administrators' Manual does not exist yet.

Much of the information presented in this manual will be useful even when building a package which is to be distributed in some other way or is for local use.


1.2 New versions of this document

The current version of this document is always accessible from the Debian FTP server ftp.debian.org at /debian/doc/manuals/debian-policy.html.tar.gz or from the Debian WWW server at http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/.

In addition, this manual is distributed via the Debian package debian-policy.


1.3 Feedback

As the Debian GNU/Linux system is continuously evolving this manual is changed from time to time.

While the authors of this document tried hard not to include any typos or other errors these still occur. If you discover an error in this manual or if you want to tell us any comments, suggestions, or critics please send an email to the Debian Policy List, debian-policy@lists.debian.org, or submit a bug report against the debian-policy package.


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Debian Policy Manual
version 3.1.1.1, 1999-11-22
Ian Jackson ijackson@gnu.ai.mit.edu
Christian Schwarz schwarz@debian.org
revised: David A. Morris bweaver@debian.org
The Debian Policy mailing List debian-policy@lists.debian.org