Re: Bug#64460: whois package shouldn't be Priority: important, rather optional

[md@linux.it (Marco d'Itri)]

On May 21, Josip Rodin <joy@cibalia.gkvk.hr> wrote:

 >>  >Many packages that are way more important to most people than whois
 >>  >currently aren't even close to `Priority: important', I recommend that
 >>  >you lower the priority of the package to `optional'. TIA.
 >> It just inherited the priority of bsdutils, from which I split it.
 >No, bsdutils has required priority, and has had it for a long time now.
You are right, I think I already downgraded it to important (because
it's obvious the system won't broke if I remove whois).

 >> I suppose it could be downgraded to standard, but whois is something I
 >> expect to find on *every* unix system.
 >I believe you do, but a large majority of people never even heard of whois,
 >and will never need it. Besides, most people expect to find X on every unix
It's a well known fact a large majority of people is stupid and/or knows
fuck about UNIX and networking.
This is why I don't care about this kind of arguments.

 >system, yet most of X in Debian is optional.
Please read the definition of standard priority in the policy document:

          These packages provide a reasonably small but not too limited
          character-mode system.

This is why X has optional priority.

Now read the definition of importantd priority:

          Important programs, including those which one would expect to
          find on any Unix-like system. If the expectation is that an
          experienced Unix person who found it missing would say `What the
          F*!@<+ is going on, where is `foo'', it must be in `important'.

whois has been a standard BSD command like telnet and ftp since at least
then years, so I think this is enough to consider it important and close
this bug.

-- 
ciao,
Marco