Quoting Justin B Rye (justin.byam.rye@gmail.com):
> No, "needed" is simple past, which implies that the situation
> described (i.e. the need for curtailed security support) has ended;
> what we want here is present perfect (the "has" construction), which
> implies that the situation described has continuing relevance.
>
Nice catch !
> > - The following packages found on your system are affected by this.
> > + The following packages found on this system are affected by this:
> > .
> > ${MESSAGE}
>
> I gather this template text is echoed by runtime messages from
> binaries in the package (since there's a messages.po with the same
> grammar problem). Should I give you a patch for that too?
Would be a good idea, yes. Same for the manpage.
> > -Description: Identify installed packages with ended/limited security support
> > +Description: identify installed packages with ended/limited security support
>
> Well, it's not a capitalised verb phrase any longer, but you haven't
> managed to cram it into DevRef's preferred noun phrase format; that
> would need something like
> Description: identifier for installed packages with ended/limited security support
> Or maybe "detector"... but that's awkward. How about:
>
> Description: security support coverage checker
Sounds great. I was indeed unable to find anything that wouldn't be
too clunky....
> Do I understand that it does this by *containing lists* of packages
> with such limits? Okay, so if LibreOffice (say) declares that the
> version of their software in stable is now unsupported, how is that
> information going to reach users who have debian-security-support
> already installed (apart from "via the security mailinglists they
> should also be subscribed to", that is)? I would have expected this
> package to have a cron-job downloading new lists and comparing them to
> "dpkg -l" output, or maybe to receive package updates via the security
> repository and automatically check for alerts via an apt hook. But
> instead it seems to be essentially manual - is that correct?
>
> If you don't want intemperate bug reports from people who guessed
> wrong, you ought to answer this question in the package description.
I leave that to answer to the package maintainers..:-)
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