Package: quota
Version: 4.00-3
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch
The package description for quotatool was mentioned on the
debian-l10n-english mailinglist (see #672848), which naturally brought
quota itself to my attention. Looking at the control file:
> Package: quota
[...]
> Description: implementation of the disk quota system
The "implementation of" part is a waste of valuable space here - every
piece of software in Debian is necessarily an "implementation of"
something or other. And besides, I'm not convinced that this package
is really an implementation of the disk quota system. I would have
said it was the kernel module that implemented the quota system - this
package just provides a set of standard tools for managing quotas.
> QUOTA is implemented using the BSD system call interface as the means of
> communication with the user level. This is based on the Melbourne quota
> system which uses both user and group quota files.
Policy 3.4 requires that "The description should describe the package
(the program) to a user (system administrator) who has never met it
before so that they have enough information to decide whether they
want to install it." Even among Debian sysadmins who know all about
the developmental history of disk quota systems on UNIX it seems
unlikely that many of them set out to choose a quota manipulation tool
on the basis of whether or not it is based on something used at the
University of Melbourne back in the eighties. So can we please leave
the ancient history to /usr/share/doc/quota/, and put something more
useful in the package description - for instance, an explanation of
what "disk quotas" are.
Compare the upstream web page at http://linuxquota.sourceforge.net/:
_About_this_project:_
This is the _Linux_DiskQuota_ project ("linuxquota")
This project was registered on SourceForge.net on Jan 11, 2001, and
is described by the project team as follows:
Tools and patches for the Linux Diskquota system as part of the
Linux kernel
The quota package description (with its reference to "QUOTA" as if
that was the canonical upstream name) is considerably older than this
Linux Diskquota project; indeed, it has hardly changed since 1996.
Maybe, cribbing from the material I've suggested for quotatool:
Description: disk quota management tools
This package provides the standard set of utilities for manipulating
file system usage caps via the Linux Diskquota system. It can set hard
or soft limits with adjustable grace periods on block or inode usage for
users and groups. It allows users to check their quota status,
integrates with LDAP, and supports quotas on remote machines via NFS.
Parts I'm unsure of:
* should it mention supported file systems (e.g. XFS)?
* exactly how integrated with LDAP is it, anyway?
* are there any other parts I should be unsure of?
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
diff -ru quota-4.00.pristine/debian/control quota-4.00/debian/control
--- quota-4.00.pristine/debian/control 2012-05-14 12:01:16.000000000 +0100
+++ quota-4.00/debian/control 2012-05-14 13:57:01.487392503 +0100
@@ -12,7 +12,9 @@
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, debconf (>= 1.2.9) | debconf-2.0, lsb-base (>= 3.2-13)
Suggests: libnet-ldap-perl, rpcbind | portmap, default-mta | mail-transport-agent
-Description: implementation of the disk quota system
- QUOTA is implemented using the BSD system call interface as the means of
- communication with the user level. This is based on the Melbourne quota
- system which uses both user and group quota files.
+Description: disk quota management tools
+ This package provides the standard set of utilities for manipulating
+ file system usage caps via the Linux DiskQuota system. It can set hard
+ or soft limits with adjustable grace periods on block or inode usage for
+ users and groups. It allows users to check their quota status,
+ integrates with LDAP, and supports quotas on remote machines via NFS.
