Debian woody package contents

Debian woody release manager AJ has posted a reminder that major changes are not to be made to the base distribition (“…in order not to introduce new bugs.”). Oh, and there’s also a list of the software to be included in the base and standard packages. Read and enjoy.

Hello world,

Just to clarify for everyone, at this point in the freeze, the following
general rules apply:

        Under *no* circumstances should you be making major changes to
        packages in base [0]. Changes should be limited to the *absolute*
        minimum required to make the package suitable for release. The
        focus for base packages is fixing RC bugs, but other bugs and
        wishlists can be done too, as long as the fix makes minimal
        changes in order to *not* introduce new bugs.

        Packages in standard [1], or that are included in tasks (sorry,
        no easy list at the moment due to dependencies, but this includes
        most of X, Gnome, KDE and so forth) need to be focussing
        on getting as ready as possible to release. Hopefully RC bug
        squashing on these packages will start in earnest within the week.
        Certainly major changes should be done with a fair degree of care.

        Remaining packages are still pretty much on a "do as you please"
        policy, although they'll be dropped if they're not working at the
        appropriate time, so some care is still a good idea.

Cheers,
aj (woody release manager)

[0] Packages in base are (by source):
        aboot                   gcc-2.96                nvi 
        adduser                 gcc-3.0                 openldap2 
        amiga-fdisk             gdbm                    palo 
        apt                     gettext                 pam 
        at                      glibc                   pciutils 
        atari-bootstrap         gnu-efi                 pcre3 
        atari-fdisk             grep                    perl 
        base-config             groff                   popt 
        base-files              gzip                    powerpc-utils 
        base-passwd             hfsutils                ppp 
        bash                    hostname                procps 
        bsdmainutils            ifupdown                psmisc 
        console-common          ipchains                quik 
        console-data            libcap                  readline4 
        console-tools           libident                rp-pppoe 
        cpio                    liblockfile             sed 
        cron                    lilo                    setserial 
        cyrus-sasl              logrotate               shadow 
        db2                     mac-fdisk               shellutils 
        db3                     mailx                   silo 
        debconf                 makedev                 slang 
        debianutils             man-db                  sparc-utils 
        dhcp                    manpages                sysklogd 
        diff                    mawk                    sysvinit 
        dosfstools              mbr                     tar 
        dpkg                    modconf                 tasksel 
        dvhtool                 modutils                tcp-wrappers 
        e2fsprogs               nano                    texinfo 
        ed                      ncurses                 textutils 
        eject                   net-tools               update 
        exim                    netbase                 util-linux 
        fdutils                 netkit-base             vmelilo 
        fileutils               netkit-telnet           yaboot 
        findutils               newt 

[1] Packages in standard are:
        ae              gdb             mig             rcs 
        bc              gpm             mime-support    reportbug 
        biff            host            mpack           s390-tools 
        bind9           hurd            mtools          sharutils 
        binutils        inetutils       mtr             strace 
        bison           ipmasqadm       mutt            tcsh 
        bsd-finger      ispell          netkit-ftp      tetex-bin 
        catsboot        less            nfs-utils       time 
        delo            libnss-db       nwutil          um-pppd 
        doc-debian      libpng          openssh         vacation 
        doc-linux       linux86         patch           wenglish 
        fdflush         lpr             pidentd         whois 
        file            lsof            portmap         zlib 
        flex            lynx            procmail 
        gcc-2.95        m4              python 
        gcc-defaults    make            rblcheck 

-- 
Anthony Towns 
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

``_Any_ increase in interface difficulty, in exchange for a benefit you
  do not understand, cannot perceive, or don't care about, is too much.''
                      -- John S. Novak, III (The Humblest Man on the Net)