Debian Bug report logs - #391717
gender in /etc/passwd

Package: passwd; Maintainer for passwd is Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>; Source for passwd is src:shadow (PTS, buildd, popcon).

Reported by: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>

Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 10:33:10 UTC

Severity: wishlist

Tags: wontfix

Done: Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

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Report forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian Adduser Developers <adduser-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package adduser. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>:
New Bug report received and forwarded. Copy sent to Debian Adduser Developers <adduser-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>
To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
Subject: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Sun, 08 Oct 2006 12:13:31 +0200
Package: adduser
Version: 3.97
Severity: wishlist

Hi!

Would it be possible to extend the 5th field of /etc/passwd to include gender
information?  This is very useful for localised programs in languages that
make gender distinction.  For example in Catalan, many sentences are constructed
differently when addressing a male than when addressing a female.

If you like the idea, I can send a patch for adduser.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (500, 'testing')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.17-2-amd64
Locale: LANG=ca_AD.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=ca_AD.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) (ignored: LC_ALL set to ca_AD.UTF-8)

Versions of packages adduser depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]       1.5.4        Debian configuration management sy
ii  passwd                      1:4.0.18.1-3 change and administer password and
ii  perl-base                   5.8.8-6.1    The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbis

adduser recommends no packages.

-- debconf information excluded



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian Adduser Developers <adduser-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package adduser. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian Adduser Developers <adduser-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #10 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>
To: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>, 391717@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: [Adduser-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 13:24:33 +0200
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 12:13:31PM +0200, Robert Millan wrote:
> Would it be possible to extend the 5th field of /etc/passwd to include gender
> information?  This is very useful for localised programs in languages that
> make gender distinction.  For example in Catalan, many sentences are constructed
> differently when addressing a male than when addressing a female.
> 
> If you like the idea, I can send a patch for adduser.

What do you intend to change in adduser? adduser does not use the
gecos field itself, it only interfaces to the low-level tools, most
often the tools from the shadow package.

Also, be aware that there is a de facto standard for the contents of
the GECOS field which - IIRC - does not have provisions for a gender
field.

Greetings
Marc

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Haber         | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Mannheim, Germany  |  lose things."    Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 621 72739834
Nordisch by Nature |  How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 621 72739835



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian Adduser Developers <adduser-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package adduser. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #13 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>
To: Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>
Cc: 391717@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: [Adduser-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 16:52:00 +0200
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 01:24:33PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 12:13:31PM +0200, Robert Millan wrote:
> > Would it be possible to extend the 5th field of /etc/passwd to include gender
> > information?  This is very useful for localised programs in languages that
> > make gender distinction.  For example in Catalan, many sentences are constructed
> > differently when addressing a male than when addressing a female.
> > 
> > If you like the idea, I can send a patch for adduser.
> 
> What do you intend to change in adduser? adduser does not use the
> gecos field itself, it only interfaces to the low-level tools, most
> often the tools from the shadow package.
> 
> Also, be aware that there is a de facto standard for the contents of
> the GECOS field which - IIRC - does not have provisions for a gender
> field.

I'm not sure what's the best way to proceed (if I was, I'd already send a
patch).  I was hoping we could find a way to extend and/or abuse the GECOS
in a back-wards compatible manner.

Such "gender" field may have three values (male, female or undefined).  The
latter could mean we don't know, or we don't care.  Perhaps one of the fields
can be abused/extended to add this information (in which case this is an
adduser issue), or chfn could be modified to provide an additional field (in
which case this issue belongs to the shadow suite).

I think the latter is cleaner, but if the de-facto standard prevents this
change in a backward compatible manner, perhaps we should consider the former.
What do you think?

-- 
Robert Millan

My spam trap is honeypot@aybabtu.com.  Note: this address is only intended for
spam harvesters.  Writing to it will get you added to my black list.



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian Adduser Developers <adduser-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package adduser. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian Adduser Developers <adduser-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #18 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>
To: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>
Cc: 391717@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: [Adduser-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 17:31:20 +0200
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 04:52:00PM +0200, Robert Millan wrote:
> What do you think?

I think that this is not within adduser's domain and should be cleared
with the maintainers of the underlying low level tools.

adduser doesn't care about the GECOS field at all, even the questions
asked during interactive account creation are not asked by adduser,
but by chfn.

Greetings
Marc

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Marc Haber         | "I don't trust Computers. They | Mailadresse im Header
Mannheim, Germany  |  lose things."    Winona Ryder | Fon: *49 621 72739834
Nordisch by Nature |  How to make an American Quilt | Fax: *49 621 72739835



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian Adduser Developers <adduser-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package adduser. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #21 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>
To: Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>
Cc: 391717@bugs.debian.org, passwd@packages.debian.org
Subject: Re: [Adduser-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 18:05:37 +0200
reassign 391717 passwd
thanks

On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 05:31:20PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 04:52:00PM +0200, Robert Millan wrote:
> > What do you think?
> 
> I think that this is not within adduser's domain and should be cleared
> with the maintainers of the underlying low level tools.
> 
> adduser doesn't care about the GECOS field at all, even the questions
> asked during interactive account creation are not asked by adduser,
> but by chfn.

Ok.

passwd maintainers, what do you think about this?  The idea would be to add a
gender field in the GECOS, please see the bug log for details and rationale.

  http://bugs.debian.org/391717

Thanks,

-- 
Robert Millan

My spam trap is honeypot@aybabtu.com.  Note: this address is only intended for
spam harvesters.  Writing to it will get you added to my black list.



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Debian Adduser Developers <adduser-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package adduser. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Stephen Gran <sgran@debian.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Debian Adduser Developers <adduser-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #26 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Stephen Gran <sgran@debian.org>
To: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>, 391717@bugs.debian.org
Cc: Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>
Subject: Re: Bug#391717: [Adduser-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 17:11:06 +0100
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
This one time, at band camp, Robert Millan said:
> I'm not sure what's the best way to proceed (if I was, I'd already
> send a patch).  I was hoping we could find a way to extend and/or
> abuse the GECOS in a back-wards compatible manner.
> 
> Such "gender" field may have three values (male, female or undefined). 

I think that this opens a whole set of issues that have previously been
happily ignored; you are creating an enum here, essentially, but not
putting in possibilities for trans gender or other non biological
identifiers, which is an issue I would be really happy to not deal with,
frankly.

> The latter could mean we don't know, or we don't care.  Perhaps one of
> the fields can be abused/extended to add this information (in which
> case this is an adduser issue), or chfn could be modified to provide
> an additional field (in which case this issue belongs to the shadow
> suite).

The whole thing belongs at a lower layer than adduser, I think.  Th
efirst thing I would do is try an experiment on one of your systems and
see what goes wrong.  I suspect finger and some other tools may not
behave all that well if you add an extra field or change the semantics
of a pre-existing field (I mean a field within the gecos entry, in case
it's not clear).

If all goes well, contrary to my expectations, then I would take it up
with the shadow maintainers - adduser currently really only calls chfn
to handle the gecos entries, so if the support is there, it will be
present in adduser.
-- 
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
|   ,''`.                                            Stephen Gran |
|  : :' :                                        sgran@debian.org |
|  `. `'                        Debian user, admin, and developer |
|    `-                                     http://www.debian.org |
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Bug reassigned from package `adduser' to `passwd'. Request was from Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com> to control@bugs.debian.org. (full text, mbox, link).


Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package passwd. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #31 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>
To: Stephen Gran <sgran@debian.org>
Cc: 391717@bugs.debian.org, Marc Haber <mh+debian-packages@zugschlus.de>
Subject: Re: Bug#391717: [Adduser-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 18:59:36 +0200
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 05:11:06PM +0100, Stephen Gran wrote:
> This one time, at band camp, Robert Millan said:
> > I'm not sure what's the best way to proceed (if I was, I'd already
> > send a patch).  I was hoping we could find a way to extend and/or
> > abuse the GECOS in a back-wards compatible manner.
> > 
> > Such "gender" field may have three values (male, female or undefined). 
> 
> I think that this opens a whole set of issues that have previously been
> happily ignored; you are creating an enum here, essentially, but not
> putting in possibilities for trans gender or other non biological
> identifiers, which is an issue I would be really happy to not deal with,
> frankly.

So me :).  That's why we have undefined and we can put anything we don't
address explicitly in that set.  This way the possibility of adding new sets
is always open, although i'm not very interested in exploring that either.

> The whole thing belongs at a lower layer than adduser, I think.  Th
> efirst thing I would do is try an experiment on one of your systems and
> see what goes wrong.  I suspect finger and some other tools may not
> behave all that well if you add an extra field or change the semantics
> of a pre-existing field (I mean a field within the gecos entry, in case
> it's not clear).
> 
> If all goes well, contrary to my expectations, then I would take it up
> with the shadow maintainers - adduser currently really only calls chfn
> to handle the gecos entries, so if the support is there, it will be
> present in adduser.

Already reassigned and contacted the shadow maintainers (see my previous mail).

-- 
Robert Millan

My spam trap is honeypot@aybabtu.com.  Note: this address is only intended for
spam harvesters.  Writing to it will get you added to my black list.



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package passwd. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #36 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>
To: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>
Cc: 391717@bugs.debian.org, Tomasz Kłoczko <kloczek@zie.pg.gda.pl>, shadow@pld.org.pl
Subject: Re: [Pkg-shadow-devel] Re: [Adduser-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 19:44:57 +0200
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
Quoting Robert Millan (rmh@aybabtu.com):
> reassign 391717 passwd
> thanks
> 
> On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 05:31:20PM +0200, Marc Haber wrote:
> > On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 04:52:00PM +0200, Robert Millan wrote:
> > > What do you think?
> > 
> > I think that this is not within adduser's domain and should be cleared
> > with the maintainers of the underlying low level tools.
> > 
> > adduser doesn't care about the GECOS field at all, even the questions
> > asked during interactive account creation are not asked by adduser,
> > but by chfn.
> 
> Ok.
> 
> passwd maintainers, what do you think about this?  The idea would be to add a
> gender field in the GECOS, please see the bug log for details and rationale.
> 
>   http://bugs.debian.org/391717


I personnally dislike the idea (why gender and why not religion or the
like.....I think that the rationale of l10n is a bit haircutting,
here). But, anyway, this is something that should be discussed with
our upstream and he should discuss it with other distros.


If our upstream and/or other "vendors" do not seem interested to add
this information in /etc/passwd, then I will certainly not make a
specific Debian fix.

If they're interested, well we will follow. I'll still dislike this,
though..:)





[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package passwd. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #41 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
To: shadow@pld.org.pl
Cc: Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>, Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>, 391717@bugs.debian.org, Tomasz Kłoczko <kloczek@zie.pg.gda.pl>
Subject: Re: [Pkg-shadow-devel] Re: [Adduser-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 14:11:33 -0400
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
On Sunday 08 October 2006 13:44, Christian Perrier wrote:
> > passwd maintainers, what do you think about this?  The idea would be to
> > add a gender field in the GECOS, please see the bug log for details and
> > rationale.
> >
> >   http://bugs.debian.org/391717
>
> I personnally dislike the idea (why gender and why not religion or the
> like.....I think that the rationale of l10n is a bit haircutting,
> here). But, anyway, this is something that should be discussed with
> our upstream and he should discuss it with other distros.

i'd agree ... trying to solve the issue at hand (gender in l10n) by adding an 
otherwise useless field to GECOS seems like the wrong approach to me
-mike
[Message part 2 (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package passwd. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #44 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>
To: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
Cc: shadow@pld.org.pl, Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>, 391717@bugs.debian.org, Tomasz Kłoczko <kloczek@zie.pg.gda.pl>, debian-women@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: [Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Sun, 8 Oct 2006 21:07:07 +0200
On Sun, Oct 08, 2006 at 02:11:33PM -0400, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> On Sunday 08 October 2006 13:44, Christian Perrier wrote:
> > > passwd maintainers, what do you think about this?  The idea would be to
> > > add a gender field in the GECOS, please see the bug log for details and
> > > rationale.
> > >
> > >   http://bugs.debian.org/391717
> >
> > I personnally dislike the idea (why gender and why not religion or the
> > like.....I think that the rationale of l10n is a bit haircutting,
> > here).

Well, there are some constructions (even in English, although much less common)
that can only be made with assumption on the user's gender.  For example in
Catalan (and probably most latin languages) you can't ask "Are you sure you want
to xxxxx?" (a pretty common question in computing) without assuming the user is
male or female.  Usualy the former is assumed, but I find this a bit
disrespectful, specialy since making debian more friendly to the female public
[1] is a common concern in our community nowadays.

[1] Which reminds me debian-women might want to be CCed..

> > But, anyway, this is something that should be discussed with
> > our upstream and he should discuss it with other distros.

Is kloczek@pld.org.pl the right upstream contact address?  I sent the same
request to him roughly a month ago, but received no response (not sure if due to
lack of interest, time, or just mail breakage).

-- 
Robert Millan

My spam trap is honeypot@aybabtu.com.  Note: this address is only intended for
spam harvesters.  Writing to it will get you added to my black list.



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package passwd. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #49 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>
To: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>, 391717@bugs.debian.org
Cc: Tomasz Kłoczko <kloczek@zie.pg.gda.pl>, debian-women@lists.debian.org, shadow@pld.org.pl
Subject: Re: Bug#391717: [Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 07:27:01 +0200
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
> Well, there are some constructions (even in English, although much less common)
> that can only be made with assumption on the user's gender.  For example in
> Catalan (and probably most latin languages) you can't ask "Are you sure you want
> to xxxxx?" (a pretty common question in computing) without assuming the user is
> male or female.  Usualy the former is assumed, but I find this a bit
> disrespectful, specialy since making debian more friendly to the female public

This is a problem for nearly all languages. And the common solution is
usually to try finding constructions that do not lead to the
problem. Most often that involves neutral wording which is, by chance,
what I would recommend in most cases (scientific culture: Thou Shalt
never use first person ; Thou Shalt never address Thy reader).

The D-W project members will certainly agree that using gender-neutral
wording and more generally being gender-neutral is something that I
personnally try to do as much as I can and everywhere I can. But, here
again, I don't see much interesting value added to this GECOS field
for that matter.

Some other D-W members will also remember the reactions when I did
propose a gender field in.....the Debian developers database....:)

> Is kloczek@pld.org.pl the right upstream contact address?  I sent the same
> request to him roughly a month ago, but received no response (not sure if due to
> lack of interest, time, or just mail breakage).


Tomasz (shadow upstream, yes) has been very busy last weeks. I'm not
sure he got very interested by the topic anyway....

He's CC'ed but, indeed, being subscribed to the Debian maintainers
mailing list which gets the shadow Debian package bug reports, he
alreay gets all our bug reports.


[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package passwd. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Miriam Ruiz <little_miry@yahoo.es>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #54 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Miriam Ruiz <little_miry@yahoo.es>
To: 391717@bugs.debian.org, debian-women@lists.debian.org
Subject: RV: Re: [Pkg-shadow-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2006 16:22:40 +0200 (CEST)
Him

Dunno why I haven't received back the copy for my message sent to the list or
in the bug report. I'm resending it just in case.

Greetings,
Miry


 --- Miriam Ruiz <little_miry@yahoo.es> escribió:

> Hi,
> 
> I think it's a great idea to find a way to use gender in i18n. I think it
> makes the system much more user-friendly and I fully support the idea.
> 
> I'm not sure if /etc/passwd and GECOS is the proper way to handle that,
> anyway. I wouldn't really like a gender field used for anything else than
> i18n. For example I think it would be a horrible idea to have the user's
> gender appear in finger reports. I repeat that I wouldn't like having a
> gender
> field for anything else than i18n.
> 
> I don't know what the best technical solution is, but I like the idea of
> being
> able to have my system referring to me in feminine for a change, and I guess
> many female users whould thank that too. Thanks for bringing this topic.
> 
> Regarding the discussion about other possible enum values than feminine,
> masculine or undefined, I don't really think they make sense in this
> context,
> because linguistically most transgendered people tend to identify themselves
> with one of those labels. It would be useless.
> 
> Greetings,
> Miry
> 
>  --- Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com> escribió:
> 
> > Well, there are some constructions (even in English, although much less
> > common)
> > that can only be made with assumption on the user's gender.  For example
> in
> > Catalan (and probably most latin languages) you can't ask "Are you sure
> you
> > want
> > to xxxxx?" (a pretty common question in computing) without assuming the
> user
> > is
> > male or female.  Usualy the former is assumed, but I find this a bit
> > disrespectful, specialy since making debian more friendly to the female
> > public
> > [1] is a common concern in our community nowadays.
> > 
> > [1] Which reminds me debian-women might want to be CCed..



		
______________________________________________ 
LLama Gratis a cualquier PC del Mundo. 
Llamadas a fijos y móviles desde 1 céntimo por minuto. 
http://es.voice.yahoo.com



Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package passwd. (full text, mbox, link).


Acknowledgement sent to Michelle Konzack <linux4michelle@freenet.de>:
Extra info received and forwarded to list. Copy sent to Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #59 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Michelle Konzack <linux4michelle@freenet.de>
To: Stephen Gran <sgran@debian.org>, 391717@bugs.debian.org
Subject: Re: Bug#391717: [Adduser-devel] Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Date: Fri, 13 Oct 2006 15:07:16 +0200
Hello Stepen and *,

Am 2006-10-08 17:11:06, schrieb Stephen Gran:
> This one time, at band camp, Robert Millan said:
> > Such "gender" field may have three values (male, female or undefined). 
> 
> I think that this opens a whole set of issues that have previously been
> happily ignored; you are creating an enum here, essentially, but not
> putting in possibilities for trans gender or other non biological
> identifiers, which is an issue I would be really happy to not deal with,
> frankly.

This is right since I am hermaphrodite and this issue is already
in treetment by the "Court of Human Rights" (Strasbourg/France)
and by the "European Court of Justice" 

Since geneticment I am NOT male and NOT female.

So, before doing something on this issue, the Upstream and the
Maintainers of such Software should wait for it.

The more difficult question is, what do you want to do with an
Hermaphrodite (sex: hermaphrodit) which live as women OR as man?

...or maybe like me as "Hermaphrodite"!

I have already political and busines repressions because the
conservative France wan't accept my status...

I am orgin half Iranien and half Turkish and maried with a women
in Morocco.  In all three countries, my sex is hermaphrodite.

> The whole thing belongs at a lower layer than adduser, I think.  Th
> efirst thing I would do is try an experiment on one of your systems and
> see what goes wrong.  I suspect finger and some other tools may not
> behave all that well if you add an extra field or change the semantics
> of a pre-existing field (I mean a field within the gecos entry, in case
> it's not clear).

if you add a new filed in the GECOS at the end (I have done
this for some seconds) do applications accept it?

I will test it now for a while

> If all goes well, contrary to my expectations, then I would take it up
> with the shadow maintainers - adduser currently really only calls chfn
> to handle the gecos entries, so if the support is there, it will be
> present in adduser.

ACK

Thanks, Greetings and nice Day
    Michelle Konzack
    Systemadministrator
    Tamay Dogan Network
    Debian GNU/Linux Consultant


-- 
Linux-User #280138 with the Linux Counter, http://counter.li.org/
##################### Debian GNU/Linux Consultant #####################
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                   50, rue de Soultz         MSM LinuxMichi
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Information forwarded to debian-bugs-dist@lists.debian.org, Shadow package maintainers <pkg-shadow-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>:
Bug#391717; Package passwd. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #62 received at 391717@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>
To: 391717@bugs.debian.org
Cc: Miriam Ruiz <little_miry@yahoo.es>, debian-women@lists.debian.org
Subject: ~/.gender and $GENDER
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 17:14:58 +0100
Miriam Ruiz said:
> Hi,
> 
> I think it's a great idea to find a way to use gender in i18n. I think it
> makes the system much more user-friendly and I fully support the idea.
> 
> I'm not sure if /etc/passwd and GECOS is the proper way to handle that,
> anyway. I wouldn't really like a gender field used for anything else than
> i18n. For example I think it would be a horrible idea to have the user's
> gender appear in finger reports. I repeat that I wouldn't like having a
> gender
> field for anything else than i18n.
> 
> I don't know what the best technical solution is, but I like the idea of
> being
> able to have my system referring to me in feminine for a change, and I guess
> many female users whould thank that too. Thanks for bringing this topic.

Well, my concern is only with i18n.  Thinking again about it, I tend to agree
with you in that GECOS might not be the right place.  I think users should be
free to modify their gender status within the system (e.g. to correct mistakes,
update their status after sex change, whatsoever).

After all, this represents how the user _wants_ to be addressed by her own
programs much like locales do.

I propose the following spec/plan:

  - ~/.gender file is a shell script that exports GENDER variable.
    - adduser creates that file when adding a new user.
    - so does d-i.
  - We modify the default bashrc script to source ~/.gender if it exists.
  - $GENDER variable is available to be checked from anywhere (typicaly gettext).

-- 
Robert Millan

My spam trap is honeypot@aybabtu.com.  Note: this address is only intended for
spam harvesters.  Writing to it will get you added to my black list.



Tags added: wontfix Request was from Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org> to control@bugs.debian.org. (full text, mbox, link).


Reply sent to Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>:
You have taken responsibility. (full text, mbox, link).


Notification sent to Robert Millan <rmh@aybabtu.com>:
Bug acknowledged by developer. (full text, mbox, link).


Message #69 received at 391717-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Christian Perrier <bubulle@debian.org>
To: 391717-done@bugs.debian.org
Subject: This issue appears to be no longer relevant
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 19:03:10 +0200
[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]
From all the comments in this issue, I conclude that dealing with l10n
issue by diverting the use of a passwd field is certainly not the
right approach to me.



-- 


[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Bug archived. Request was from Debbugs Internal Request <owner@bugs.debian.org> to internal_control@bugs.debian.org. (Tue, 17 Jul 2007 07:26:22 GMT) (full text, mbox, link).


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