Homepage Field HOWTO

The page DpkgHomepageFieldTransition outlines a plan about how Debian will migrate to the new Homepage field in debian/control.

However, it is hard to find information for the package maintainer how to use the field since the policy manual has not yet been amended.

• update: the policy has now been updated and documents the Homepage field, the information below are not to be considered normative

This page tries to collect information needed, and also asks some questions that still need answering.

• The field is called "Homepage".

• Its format is "Homepage: http://foo.bar.example/"

• Is it to be written into the Source stanza
• Inside this stanza, its location is irrelevant, though most packages put it late into the stanza
• Do our tools support it widely enough so that a "Homepage" or "Upstream URL" given in the package description can safely be removed?