Bug#403101: xbase-clients: please don't install by xhost default

[Lars Wirzenius <liw@iki.fi>]

Package: xbase-clients
Version: 1:7.1.ds-3
Severity: wishlist
Justification: not worth delaying etch for

xbase-clients contains xhost, which in the modern world (after 1995,
when ssh was first released) is rarely the right tool, but it is so easy
that the Internet is full of advice to use "xhost +" to allow X programs
to use a remote server.

It would be nice if Debian would move xhost to a separate package, not
installed by default (priority extra, not depended-on by anything, not
part of a task).

Since xhost is occasionally useful for people who do understand what
they're doing, the xbase-clients package could then contain a little
script like this:

        #!/bin/sh
        echo xhost is rarely useful, please use "ssh -X" or xauth
        instead.
        echo See /usr/share/doc/xbase-clients/README.xhost for
        information.

That script and the real xhost binary could then be alternatives, so
that installing the xhost package would make xhost magically work.

-- 
Close your mind to stress and pain, hack till you're no longer sane.