On Debian Stretch some packages are available only on stretch-backports-sloppy. What is the stretch-backports-sloppy repository used for? What is the deference between sloppy and the regular …-backports?
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The main backports repositories never allow versions of packages which are newer than those in the main repositories for the following release, to ensure that packages can be upgraded smoothly when the system is upgraded to the next release. That is to say, a Debian 9 system with packages from Stretch backports mustn’t end up with packages newer than those in Debian 10, to ensure that the whole system can be smoothly upgraded to Debian 10.
Sloppy backports repositories don’t have this restriction. Thus packages can be backported to Buster backports and Strech sloppy backports, for example.
Thus the apache2 packages have the following versions, currently:
- 2.4.25-3+deb9u9 in Debian 9
- 2.4.46-1~bpo9+1 in Stretch sloppy backports
- 2.4.38-3+deb10u4 in Debian 10
- 2.4.46-1~bpo10+1 in Buster backports
Without sloppy backports, backports for Debian 9 would be limited to versions older than 2.4.38-3 (the version Debian 10 was released with) — technically, this includes 2.4.38-3, which would be backported as 2.4.38-3~bpo9+1 (which is “older” than 2.4.38-3, thanks to the tilde).
See the backports instructions:
To guarantee a clean upgrade path from a previously stable distribution to the next stable, it is not allowed to upload packages from the current testing to that backport distribution. To allow some newer packages for those systems we create so called sloppy distributions.