Package: bind9-host
Version: 1:9.9.3.dfsg.P2-4
Severity: minor

This is largely a repeat of minor bug #579421, which was closed in
2010 by trimming some junk from the end of bind9-host's package
description.  That was an improvement, but the issue that lifted the
bug above wishlist is still present.  Policy 3.4 says:

# 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.

The description for bind9-host lacks this information:

| Description: Version of 'host' bundled with BIND 9.X
|  This package provides the 'host' program in the form that is bundled with
|  the BIND 9.X sources.

This takes it for granted that the reader already knows what "host"
does, and instead spends all its time explaining where it comes from.
But bind9-host is now the only binary package providing the "host"
virtual package, so this is fairly pointless; I attach a suggested
rewrite that shifts the focus to explaining what it's useful for.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: jessie/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (50, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.12-rc7-686-pae (SMP w/1 CPU core)
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 bind9-host depends on:
ii  libbind9-90       1:9.9.3.dfsg.P2-4
ii  libc6             2.17-93
ii  libcap2           1:2.22-1.2
ii  libcomerr2        1.42.8-1
ii  libdns99          1:9.9.3.dfsg.P2-4
ii  libgssapi-krb5-2  1.11.3+dfsg-3
ii  libisc95          1:9.9.3.dfsg.P2-4
ii  libisccfg90       1:9.9.3.dfsg.P2-4
ii  libk5crypto3      1.11.3+dfsg-3
ii  libkrb5-3         1.11.3+dfsg-3
ii  liblwres90        1:9.9.3.dfsg.P2-4
ii  libssl1.0.0       1.0.1e-4
ii  libxml2           2.9.1+dfsg1-3

bind9-host recommends no packages.

bind9-host suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information
-- 
JBR     with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
        sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
diff -ru bind9-9.9.3.dfsg.P2.pristine/debian/control bind9-9.9.3.dfsg.P2/debian/control
--- bind9-9.9.3.dfsg.P2.pristine/debian/control	2013-11-12 11:17:30.000000000 +0000
+++ bind9-9.9.3.dfsg.P2/debian/control	2013-11-12 11:20:58.275509307 +0000
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
 Standards-Version: 3.7.3.0
 XS-Vcs-Browser: http://git.debian.org/?p=users/lamont/bind9.git
 XS-Vcs-Git: git://git.debian.org/~lamont/bind9.git
+Homepage: http://www.isc.org/software/bind
 
 Package: bind9
 Architecture: any
@@ -51,9 +52,10 @@
 Conflicts: host (<<1:9.7.0), dnsutils (<< 1:9.0.0)
 Replaces: dnsutils (<< 1:9.0.0), host (<< 1:9.7.0)
 Provides: host
-Description: Version of 'host' bundled with BIND 9.X
- This package provides the 'host' program in the form that is bundled with
- the BIND 9.X sources.
+Description: DNS lookup utility
+ This package provides /usr/bin/host, a simple utility (bundled with the
+ BIND 9.X sources) which can be used for converting domain names to IP
+ addresses and the reverse.
 
 Package: libbind-dev
 Section: libdevel

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