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Why does Debian change software?

I wrote Why is Debian the way it is?, a year and a half ago, I was asked to also cover why Debian changes the software it packages. Here’s a brief list of examples of why that happens: Software in Debian needs to follow certain policies as set by Debian over the years, and documented in the Debian Policy Manual.

This is done both for privacy reasons, and because updating software without going via the packaging system is usually problematic from a functional point of view, and always problematic from a security point of view. Debian avoids including anything in the main part of its package archive it can’t legally distribute. Debian has often added a manual page when the upstream doesn’t provide one.

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