Package: gkermit
Version: 1.0-9
Severity: minor
Tags: patch
The package description for gkermit needs some routine maintenance.
> Description: A serial and network communications package
This synopsis is a bit longwinded and confusing.
* Why does it waste time telling me gkermit is a package? If it
wasn't a package it wouldn't have a package description.
* DevRef also recommends dropping the leading indefinite article
(compare ckermit!)
* More importantly, it's not precisely clear what it's trying to
say. It's a network communications package *and* it's a
serial? No, it must be saying it's a package for
communication of both network and serial varieties - right?
But that doesn't quite make sense either: kermit is a network
protocol supporting *only* serial connections.
* Of course these days "network communications" gives rather a false
impression anyway; it would be clearer if (like the man page)
it said something about "file transfer".
I would suggest using just:
gkermit - GNU Kermit file transfer program
(Assuming the man page is right to expand G-Kermit that way; I don't
see anything about it in the upstream docs.)
> G-Kermit is a GPL'd kermit package. [...]
Style guides tend to recommend against that use of apostrophe, and
"package" is redundant. Also, now that C-Kermit is BSD-licensed
there's no reason to make such a big deal about the freeness of
G-Kermit.
> [...] It offers medium-independent terminal
> session and file transfer. [...]
There's a word missing here to make this a grammatical sentence -
maybe a final "facilities".
> [...] The non-free package ckermit adds connection
> establishment, character-set translation and scripting features.
No: ckermit is in main, now. So what remaining reason is there for
installing gkermit? This package description offers no hints; compare
Debian Policy 3.4:
# The description should describe the package (the program) to a user
# (system administrator) who has never met it before so that they have
# enough information to decide whether they want to install it.
(A "should", so a "minor" rather than "wishlist" bug.)
Here's a replacement text stolen directly from an RPM version:
G-Kermit is a utility for file transfer using the Kermit protocol,
supporting text and binary transfers on 7-bit and 8-bit connections.
It is most useful as a remote endpoint; for a more fully-featured Kermit
program, use the ckermit package.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.0
APT prefers testing-updates
APT policy: (500, 'testing-updates'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Versions of packages gkermit depends on:
ii libc6 2.13-38
gkermit recommends no packages.
gkermit suggests no packages.
-- no debconf information
--
JBR
Ankh kak! (Ancient Egyptian blessing)
diff -ru gkermit-1.0.pristine/debian/control gkermit-1.0/debian/control
--- gkermit-1.0.pristine/debian/control 2013-02-24 23:01:02.000000000 +0000
+++ gkermit-1.0/debian/control 2013-02-25 00:31:59.138397191 +0000
@@ -8,7 +8,8 @@
Package: gkermit
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
-Description: A serial and network communications package
- G-Kermit is a GPL'd kermit package. It offers medium-independent terminal
- session and file transfer. The non-free package ckermit adds connection
- establishment, character-set translation and scripting features.
+Description: GNU Kermit file transfer program
+ G-Kermit is a utility for file transfer using the Kermit protocol,
+ supporting text and binary transfers on 7-bit and 8-bit connections.
+ It is most useful as a remote endpoint; for a more fully-featured Kermit
+ program, use the ckermit package.
