Package policies

From Alpine Linux
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

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.