Bug#88340: Use "chown user:group", not "chown user.group"

[Sean 'Shaleh' Perry <shaleh@valinux.com>]

On Sat, Mar 03, 2001 at 01:47:00PM +0100, Marek Michalkiewicz wrote:
> Package: general
> Version: N/A; reported 2001-03-03
> Severity: normal
> 
> I think too many packages are affected to submit bug reports on each
> one (and still not catch all of them, only the ones I have installed).
> About half of "chown" commands in various scripts use the wrong syntax
> "chown user.group" instead of the correct "chown user:group".
> 
> Quote from the fileutils manual:
> 
> #    You may use `.' in place of the `:' separator.  This is a GNU
> # extension for compatibility with older scripts.  New scripts should
> # avoid the use of `.' because GNU `chown' may fail if OWNER contains `.'
> # characters.
> 
> The use of "chown user:group" also conforms to the Single UNIX Spec.
>

I fail to see how this affects Debian?  We use the GNU tools.  The chowns
happening in maintainer scripts and elsewhere are for a known set of names
and so will not be affected by this.