Bug#1144046: define term 'release critical'?

Sean Whitton <[email protected]> Sun, 16 Aug 2026 11:17:51 +0100

Newsgroups	gmane.linux.debian.devel.policy
Message-ID	<87se4e2wts.fsf__8161.81907882623$1786876168$gmane$org@zephyr.silentflame.com>

Simon Josefsson [12/Aug  1:17pm +02] wrote:
> Andrey Rakhmatullin <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> On Mon, Aug 10, 2026 at 09:41:55AM +0200, Simon Josefsson wrote:
>>>I couldn't find a good reference of what a 'release critical' bug means,
>>
>> The wording suggests that it's a term external to the Policy.
>>
>>>would it be reasonable to include this in the policy manual?
>>
>> If this part causes confusion it could be moved to a footnote I guess?
>
> I've always been uncertain if the definition of a 'release critical bug'
> should be considered:
>
> 1) Any bug with severity critical, grave, or serious.
>
> 2) A bug that fulfills the ever-moving definition in
> https://release.debian.org/testing/rc_policy.txt
>
> 3) Something else.
>
> Is there a simple clear definition?
>
> Defining it as 1) above would solve my concern and is simple, but I'm
> honestly not certain this is actually how everyone interprete the term.
>
> A footnote is fine for me.
>
> Or some acknowledging that there is no consensus that this is worthy of
> adding an definition to Debian Policy for, and that the term is
> something that is only relevant in a narrow part of Debian (i.e., for
> the release process).  Still, I find the term 'release critical bug' or
> RC-bug is often used generally about any package, which should warrant a
> better definition.

Well, Policy requirements define what's release critical in general, and
release team decisions decide what's release critical for a given
upcoming stable release.  When the RT mark a bug as, e.g.,
'forky-ignore' without downgrading its severity, that means it's release
critical in general but not release critical for that release.

Possibly we could have a footnote with that information.

-- 
Sean Whitton

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