Package: nano
Version: 2.0.9-1
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch
I see Experimental adopts bug #495289's modified short description,
but there's still a problem both there and in the long description:
given that washington.edu have released the Pico v2.0 codebase under
a DFSG-free license (available in Lenny as alpine-pico), there's no
particular reason to mention freeness in the short description at
all any longer. It's time nano started standing up on its own two
feet as simply a good text editor in its own right.
Using the technical term "curses-based" in the short description
might also be mildly counterproductive for software with such a
genuinely friendly UI. Instead I suggest putting the word "small"
in the short description, where it would serve partly to explain the
name and partly to hint at "not bloated up with GUIness".
By the way - I've said it elsewhere and I'll say it here: the most
notable characteristic of GNU nano is that it actually deserves the
name "text editor". Most of its supposed rivals are IDEs that
happen to incorporate a baroque assortment of sourcecode-munging
functions. But I'll resist the urge to suggest the short
description "text-based text editor for editing text"! Instead:
small, friendly text editor inspired by Pico
GNU nano is an easy-to-use text editor originally designed as a replacement
for Pico, the ncurses-based editor from the non-free mailer package Pine
(itself now available under the Apache License as Alpine).
.
However, nano also implements many features missing in Pico, including:
- feature toggles;
- interactive search and replace (with regular expression support);
- go to line (and column) command;
- auto-indentation and color syntax-highlighting;
- filename tab-completion and support for multiple buffers;
- full internationalization support.
The nano-tiny version gets a modified second paragraph; currently it
has a cobwebby reference to the boot-floppies package, but instead:
This package contains a build of GNU nano with many features disabled, for
environments such as rescue-disks where resources are limited.
And for nano-udeb:
This package contains a build of GNU nano with many features disabled, for
use in debian-installer.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers testing
APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.25.custom
Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Versions of packages nano depends on:
ii libc6 2.7-16 GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii libncursesw5 5.6+20080830-2 shared libraries for terminal hand
nano recommends no packages.
Versions of packages nano suggests:
pn spell <none> (no description available)
-- no debconf information
--
JBR
Ankh kak! (Ancient Egyptian blessing)
--- ../nano.old/debian/control 2008-12-16 13:12:08.000000000 +0000
+++ debian/control 2008-12-16 13:17:22.000000000 +0000
@@ -17,26 +17,30 @@
Suggests: spell
Conflicts: nano-tiny (<= 1.0.0-1), pico, alpine-pico (<= 0.99+dfsg-1)
Replaces: pico
-Description: free curses-based text editor, inspired by Pico
- GNU nano is a free replacement for Pico, the default Pine editor. Pine is
- copyrighted under a restrictive licence, that makes it unsuitable for
- Debian's main section. GNU nano is an effort to provide a Pico-like
- editor, but also includes some features that were missing in the original,
- such as 'search and replace', 'goto line' or internationalization support.
+Description: small, friendly text editor inspired by Pico
+ GNU nano is an easy-to-use text editor originally designed as a replacement
+ for Pico, the ncurses-based editor from the non-free mailer package Pine
+ (itself now available under the Apache License as Alpine).
+ .
+ However, nano also implements many features missing in pico, including:
+ - feature toggles;
+ - interactive search and replace (with regular expression support);
+ - go to line (and column) command;
+ - auto-indentation and color syntax-highlighting;
+ - filename tab-completion and support for multiple buffers;
+ - full internationalization support.
Package: nano-tiny
Architecture: any
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
Provides: editor
-Description: free curses-based text editor, inspired by Pico - tiny build
- GNU nano is a free replacement for Pico, the default Pine editor. Pine is
- copyrighted under a restrictive licence, that makes it unsuitable for
- Debian's main section. GNU nano is an effort to provide a Pico-like
- editor, but also includes some features that were missing in the original,
- such as 'search and replace', 'goto line' or internationalization support.
+Description: small, friendly text editor inspired by Pico - tiny build
+ GNU nano is an easy-to-use text editor originally designed as a replacement
+ for Pico, the ncurses-based editor from the non-free mailer package Pine
+ (itself now available under the Apache License as Alpine).
.
- This package contains a minimal build of GNU nano, aimed for use in
- boot-floppies. Thus, many features are disabled in this version.
+ This package contains a build of GNU nano with many features disabled, for
+ environments such as rescue-disks where resources are limited.
Package: nano-udeb
Architecture: any
@@ -45,12 +49,10 @@
XC-Package-Type: udeb
Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}
Provides: editor
-Description: free curses-based text editor, inspired by Pico - udeb
- GNU nano is a free replacement for Pico, the default Pine editor. Pine is
- copyrighted under a restrictive licence, that makes it unsuitable for
- Debian's main section. GNU nano is an effort to provide a Pico-like
- editor, but also includes some features that were missing in the original,
- such as 'search and replace', 'goto line' or internationalization support.
+Description: small, friendly text editor inspired by Pico - udeb
+ GNU nano is an easy-to-use text editor originally designed as a replacement
+ for Pico, the ncurses-based editor from the non-free mailer package Pine
+ (itself now available under the Apache License as Alpine).
.
- This package contains a minimal build of GNU nano, aimed for use in
- debian-installer. Thus, many features are disabled in this version.
+ This package contains a build of GNU nano with many features disabled, for
+ use in debian-installer.
