Adduser devel - Oct 2006 - Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd

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

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

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

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.

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.

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 |
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Processing commands for control@bugs.debian.org:
> reassign 391717 passwd
Bug#391717: gender in /etc/passwd
Bug reassigned from package `adduser'' to `passwd''.
> thanks
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