On Thu, Jul 05, 2018 at 11:06:22AM -0500, David Wright wrote: > But if you're a sysadmin who has a script that wants/needs a version > *number* for any reason, then /etc/debian_version is the safest file > to modify.
I strongly disagree. The safest file to modify would be the broken shell script that needs a "release number". Either that, or the brain of the system administrator who installed testing or unstable on this production system (because what other kind of system would be running a broken shell script to detect a release number that doesn't necessarily exist).