Source: debian-policy
Version: 4.6.1
Severity: minor
Tags: patch
Hello.
The fourth paragraph of section 7.1 says:
The relations allowed are <<... for ... , respectively.
The exception is the Provides field, for which only = is allowed.
[footnote]
[footnote]: The relations < and > were previously allowed...
I see three problems in this paragraph:
* The second sentence lies, as Built-Using introduces another
exception.
* An explicit list of exceptions in the section header is hard to keep
accurate, and not useful, at least inside the policy.
* The footnote actually concerns the previous sentence.
I suggest to remove the second sentence, and instead be explicit in
the description of the Provides field.
--- a/policy/ch-relationships.rst
+++ b/policy/ch-relationships.rst
@@ -25,8 +25,7 @@
The relations allowed are ``<<``, ``<=``, ``=``, ``>=`` and ``>>`` for
strictly earlier, earlier or equal, exactly equal, later or equal and
-strictly later, respectively. The exception is the Provides field, for
-which only ``=`` is allowed. [#]_
+strictly later, respectively. [#]_
Whitespace may appear at any point in the version specification subject
to the rules in :ref:`s-controlsyntax`, and must appear
@@ -447,7 +446,9 @@ they can say:
and the ``bar-plus`` package will now also satisfy the dependency for
the ``foo`` package.
-A ``Provides`` field may contain version numbers, and such a version number
+A ``Provides`` field may contain version numbers,
+but only with the "exactly equal" ("=") relation.
+Such a version number
will be considered when considering a dependency on or conflict with the
virtual package name. For example, given the following packages:
