Re: Bug#674192: Please reconsider package description

[Justin B Rye <jbr@edlug.org.uk>]

Martin Eberhard Schauer wrote:
> Justin B Rye wrote:
>>>      This cron package is configured by default to do some basic daily system
>>>      maintenance tasks. Other packages, such as checksecurity, can provide
>>>      further maintenance tasks.
[...]
> Actually, my main concern was "Other packages ... can provide" -
> I'd rather s/can//.

Are you thinking of all the other packages that provide cronjobs?  The
last paragraph is talking about something slightly different.  The
Debian cron package originally contained quite a few other tasks, some
of which were soon separated off into checksecurity, while the others
have gradually withered away.  Checksecurity is showing its age too -
look at that package description.

[...]
>>        as specified in a "crontab" file.
>
> Would it be a good idea to mention the manpage section:
> crontab(5)?

That would be annoying if users couldn't be expected to have the
package installed, but for cron, yes, it makes sense.

I'm not sure about the phrasing, though; does 

	as specified in a "crontab(5)" file.

...still work?

>>>      Output from the commands is usually mailed to the system administrator
>>>      (or to the user in question). You should install a mail system as well
>>>      in order to receive these messages.
>>
>> I would keep the "probably" (as it's only a "Recommends"), but
>> otherwise this phrasing seems a little better.  After all, as it's
>> just said, the mail recipient isn't necessarily the sysadmin.
>
> As the mail system is only recommended the output can also be
> written into some log file for later reference?

Personally I'd be happy with giving it a strict dependency on an MTA,
but there are people who strongly oppose that; apparently they're
happy to have the error output just fall on the floor.  The idea of a
direct-to-logs option usually comes up in these arguments but nobody
has implemented it yet.  I read my logs via postfix anyway!
-- 
JBR	with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
	sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package