[7400] in Release_7.7_team
Remove "Nickname" field in GECOS?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan Reed)
Fri Mar 11 15:59:17 2011
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:59:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Jonathan Reed <jdreed@MIT.EDU>
To: Garry Zacheiss <zacheiss@mit.edu>
cc: release-team@mit.edu
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.00.1103111553030.25561@INFINITE-LOOP.mit.edu>
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Hi Garry,
We'd like to kill off Athena finger (because its non-standard format
screws up some OS-native utilities, like ACPI). One of the few reasons we
still have Athena finger is that our GECOS field is non-standard,
containing the extra "Nickname" field. Can we punt this from the Hesiod
DCM? We discussed it at release-team today, and we believe that it will
have a minimal risk, because:
- most people using parsing GECOS by hand are only interested in the full
name, and the position of that won't change
- the primary purpose of Athena finger (to be Hesiod aware) is moot in the
modern world
- If you want someone's correct contact info, you want MITDIR, not finger.
If you're amenable, we could do this now, or wait until this summer and
advertise the change as part of the Natty upgrade.
Thanks,
-Jon
