What is a "debian policy" in regards to lua?

Question

So, you can see this "policy" at this URL https://packages.debian.org/wheezy/devel/lua5.1-policy-dev

What exactly is a "debian policy" in this sense?

This sounds like windows "group policies" which has never seemed like a good use of the word policy to me.

I can find lots of policy manuals, but this use of policy seems to mean something different.

Answer 1

Good start is README, which states:

lua5.1-policy

This debian packages contains the debian policy for libraries related to the lua5.1 scripting language.

The lua5.1-policy package contains the policy, in txt and html format.

The lua5.1-policy-dev package is meant to ease the packager life. It can be declared in the the build-depends field of a lua library package and It provides the following utility and CDBS class:

• lua5.1-policy-create-svnbuildpackage-layout Should be used to initialise an svn repository for a new package.

• lua.mk to be included in your rules file

I would call it rather guidelines, than policy, but it is how Debian way of naming things. In short, it helps to adhere to the rules = Debian Packaging Policy.