VERSION_ID missing from debian:trixie image (`/etc/os-release`)

[fauust]

Hi! Is there any particular reason why the debian:trixie image does not contain the according VERSION_ID in /etc/os-release file, see bellow:

.venv ❯ podman run --rm debian:bookworm grep VERSION_ID /etc/os-release
VERSION_ID="12"
.venv ❯ podman run --rm debian:trixie grep VERSION_ID /etc/os-release

[tianon]

That file is owned by the base-files package (https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/base-files):

$ dpkg -S /etc/os-release
base-files: /etc/os-release

[tianon]

Looking at https://tracker.debian.org/news/1433360/accepted-base-files-13-source-into-unstable/, this was intentional -- if I had to guess, I'd imagine the intent is to signal that "trixie" is not a released version yet.

[tianon]

(Closing since there's nothing we are going to change in the image, but feel free to continue discussing here.)

[fauust]

Ok, thanks @tianon for the pointers!