Package policies

From Alpine Linux

The Alpine Linux Package Policies describe some of the policies when creating packages.

Package Names

  • All package names should be lowercase.
  • Development files are placed in subpackages with -dev suffix (e.g. uclibc-dev)
  • Documentation files (incl. man pages) are placed in subpackages with -doc suffix (e.g. expat-doc)
  • Lua modules (not applications) are prefixed with lua-. (e.g. lua-posix)
  • Perl modules (not applications) are prefixed with perl-. (e.g. perl-xml-parser)
  • Python 2 modules (not applications) are prefixed with py2-. (e.g. py2-libxml2)
  • Python 3 modules (not applications) are prefixed with py3-. (e.g. py3-libxml2)
  • Kernels and third party modules should be suffixed with the kernel flavor. (e.g., -grsec, -vserver).
  1. Don't use - sign in kernel flavor name.
  2. Specify KERNEL_FLAVOR_DEFAULT as your kernel flavor if you want boot your kernel by default.

Package versions

  • Package versions are similar to gentoo.

Licensing

  • The license identifier used is the short-identifier SPDX.
  • The license of the program should be based on the licenses approved by the Free Software Foundation or OSI.
  • If you are unsure about the license, please ask in our IRC channel.