[ previous ] [ Contents ] [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ] [ A ] [ B ] [ C ] [ D ] [ E ] [ F ] [ G ] [ next ]

Debian Policy Manual
Chapter 2 - The Debian Archive


The Debian GNU/Linux system is maintained and distributed as a collection of packages. Since there are so many of them (currently well over 6000), they are split into sections and given priorities to simplify the handling of them.

The effort of the Debian project is to build a free operating system, but not every package we want to make accessible is free in our sense (see the Debian Free Software Guidelines, below), or may be imported/exported without restrictions. Thus, the archive is split into the sections based on their licenses and other restrictions.

The aims of this are:

The main and the non-US/main sections together form the Debian GNU/Linux distribution.

Packages in the other sections are not considered to be part of the Debian distribution, although we support their use and provide infrastructure for them (such as our bug-tracking system and mailing lists). This Debian Policy Manual applies to these packages as well.


2.1 The Debian Free Software Guidelines

The Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG) form our definition of "free software". These are:

Free Redistribution
The license of a Debian component may not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license may not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
Source Code
The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form.
Derived Works
The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.
Integrity of The Author's Source Code
The license may restrict source-code from being distributed in modified form only if the license allows the distribution of "patch files" with the source code for the purpose of modifying the program at build time. The license must explicitly permit distribution of software built from modified source code. The license may require derived works to carry a different name or version number from the original software. (This is a compromise. The Debian Project encourages all authors to not restrict any files, source or binary, from being modified.)
No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
Distribution of License
The rights attached to the program must apply to all to whom the program is redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license by those parties.
License Must Not Be Specific to Debian
The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a Debian system. If the program is extracted from Debian and used or distributed without Debian but otherwise within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed must have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the Debian system.
License Must Not Contaminate Other Software
The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be free software.
Example Licenses
The "GPL," "BSD," and "Artistic" licenses are examples of licenses that we consider free.

2.2 Sections


2.2.1 The main section

Every package in main and non-US/main must comply with the DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines).

In addition, the packages in main

Similarly, the packages in non-US/main


2.2.2 The contrib section

Every package in contrib and non-US/contrib must comply with the DFSG.

In addition, the packages in contrib and non-US/contrib

Furthermore, packages in contrib must not require a package in a non-US section for compilation or execution.

Examples of packages which would be included in contrib or non-US/contrib are:


2.2.3 The non-free section

Packages must be placed in non-free or non-US/non-free if they are not compliant with the DFSG or are encumbered by patents or other legal issues that make their distribution problematic.

In addition, the packages in non-free and non-US/non-free


2.2.4 The non-US sections

Non-free programs with cryptographic program code need to be stored on the non-us server because of export restrictions of the U.S.

Programs which use patented algorithms that have a restricted license also need to be stored on "non-us", since that is located in a country where it is not allowed to patent algorithms.

A package depends on another package which is distributed via the non-us server has to be stored on the non-us server as well.


2.3 Copyright considerations

Every package must be accompanied by a verbatim copy of its copyright and distribution license in the file /usr/share/doc/package/copyright (see Copyright information, Section 12.5 for further details).

We reserve the right to restrict files from being included anywhere in our archives if

Programs whose authors encourage the user to make donations are fine for the main distribution, provided that the authors do not claim that not donating is immoral, unethical, illegal or something similar; in such a case they must go in non-free.

Packages whose copyright permission notices (or patent problems) do not even allow redistribution of binaries only, and where no special permission has been obtained, must not be placed on the Debian FTP site and its mirrors at all.

Note that under international copyright law (this applies in the United States, too), no distribution or modification of a work is allowed without an explicit notice saying so. Therefore a program without a copyright notice is copyrighted and you may not do anything to it without risking being sued! Likewise if a program has a copyright notice but no statement saying what is permitted then nothing is permitted.

Many authors are unaware of the problems that restrictive copyrights (or lack of copyright notices) can cause for the users of their supposedly-free software. It is often worthwhile contacting such authors diplomatically to ask them to modify their license terms. However, this can be a politically difficult thing to do and you should ask for advice on the debian-legal mailing list first, as explained below.

When in doubt about a copyright, send mail to debian-legal@lists.debian.org. Be prepared to provide us with the copyright statement. Software covered by the GPL, public domain software and BSD-like copyrights are safe; be wary of the phrases "commercial use prohibited" and "distribution restricted".


2.4 Subsections

The packages in the sections main, contrib and non-free are grouped further into subsections to simplify handling.

The section and subsection for each package should be specified in the package's Section control record (see Section, Section 5.6.4). However, the maintainer of the Debian archive may override this selection to ensure the consistency of the Debian distribution. The Section field should be of the form:

The Debian archive maintainers provide the authoritative list of subsections. At present, they are: admin, base, comm, contrib, devel, doc, editors, electronics, embedded, games, gnome, graphics, hamradio, interpreters, kde, libs, libdevel, mail, math, misc, net, news, non-US, non-free, oldlibs, otherosfs, perl, python, science, shells, sound, tex, text, utils, web, x11.


2.5 Priorities

Each package should have a priority value, which is included in the package's control record (see Priority, Section 5.6.5). This information is used by the Debian package management tools to separate high-priority packages from less-important packages.

The following priority levels are recognised by the Debian package management tools.

required
Packages which are necessary for the proper functioning of the system. You must not remove these packages or your system may become totally broken and you may not even be able to use dpkg to put things back. Systems with only the required packages are probably unusable, but they do have enough functionality to allow the sysadmin to boot and install more software.
important
Important programs, including those which one would expect to find on any Unix-like system. If the expectation is that an experienced Unix person who found it missing would say "What on earth is going on, where is foo?", it must be an important package.[4] Other packages without which the system will not run well or be usable must also have priority important. This does not include Emacs, the X Window System, TeX or any other large applications. The important packages are just a bare minimum of commonly-expected and necessary tools.
standard
These packages provide a reasonably small but not too limited character-mode system. This is what will be installed by default if the user doesn't select anything else. It doesn't include many large applications.
optional
(In a sense everything that isn't required is optional, but that's not what is meant here.) This is all the software that you might reasonably want to install if you didn't know what it was and don't have specialized requirements. This is a much larger system and includes the X Window System, a full TeX distribution, and many applications. Note that optional packages should not conflict with each other.
extra
This contains all packages that conflict with others with required, important, standard or optional priorities, or are only likely to be useful if you already know what they are or have specialised requirements.

Packages must not depend on packages with lower priority values (excluding build-time dependencies). In order to ensure this, the priorities of one or more packages may need to be adjusted.


[ previous ] [ Contents ] [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ] [ 9 ] [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ] [ A ] [ B ] [ C ] [ D ] [ E ] [ F ] [ G ] [ next ]

Debian Policy Manual

version 3.6.1.1, 2004-06-25

The Debian Policy Mailing List