Bug#872564: gnuplot: description text "This package is for transition" may be outdated and misleading

[Mike Miller]

Package: gnuplot
Version: 5.0.6+dfsg1-1
Severity: minor

Dear Maintainer,

You may want to consider rewriting the description text of the gnuplot
metapackage. It seems misleading to me that it includes the following

  This package is for transition and to install a full-featured gnuplot
  supporting the X11-output.

The phrase "This package is for transition" has been in the description
of the gnuplot metapackage unaltered since gnuplot 4.0.0, when
gnuplot-nox and gnuplot-x11 were introduced. I think this leads users to
believe that the package may go away at some point and that they should
not depend directly on it.

Since this metapackage still exists 13 years later, it seems that this
is not really a transitional package at all. It might help to clarify
the intent by rewording this last paragraph of the description.

Thanks for your work.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (900, 'testing'), (800, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.11.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages gnuplot depends on:
ii  gnuplot-qt [gnuplot-nox]  5.0.6+dfsg1-1

gnuplot recommends no packages.

Versions of packages gnuplot suggests:
pn  gnuplot-doc  <none>

-- no debconf information
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