Re: whois: Please rewrite package description

[Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>]

tags 650111 + patch
quit

Justin B Rye wrote:

> So here's my version:

Thanks much!  Looks good.

[...]
> Looking at bug #184807 doesn't leave me especially optimistic, though.

That bug had an inflated severity, which is (unfortunately) a sure way
to get someone not to listen to you.

Here are the proposed changes in patch form for convenience (with one
nit picked: s/contains/provides/, since if the whois binary were
provided through dependencies, that would be no different for the
sysadmin).
---
 debian/changelog |    7 +++++++
 debian/control   |   16 +++++++++-------
 2 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 7 deletions(-)

diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 00d040ed..2fc1f737 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+whois (5.0.13) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
+
+  * Fleshed out package description. Thanks to Justin B Rye for the
+    wording. (Closes: #650111)
+
+ -- 
+
 whois (5.0.12) unstable; urgency=low
 
   * Recursion disabled when the query string contains spaces, because
diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index 0109f487..fb3161ee 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -8,11 +8,13 @@ Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 5), gettext, libidn11-dev
 Package: whois
 Architecture: any
 Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}
-Description: intelligent whois client
- This is a new whois (RFC 3912) client rewritten from scratch.
- It is inspired from and compatible with the usual BSD and RIPE whois(1)
- programs.
- It is intelligent and can automatically select the appropriate whois
- server for most queries.
+Description: intelligent WHOIS lookup client
+ This package provides a commandline client for the WHOIS (RFC 3912)
+ protocol, which queries online servers for information such as contact
+ details for IP address assignments. It can intelligently select the
+ appropriate WHOIS server for most queries. This version is compatible
+ with and was inspired by the old BSD and RIPE implementations, but was
+ written from scratch.
  .
- The package also contains mkpasswd, a features-rich front end to crypt(3).
+ For historical reasons, the package also contains mkpasswd, a
+ feature-rich front-end to the password encryption function crypt(3).
-- 
1.7.8.rc3