[Fingerforce-devel] Bug#502736: Bug#502736: Bug#502736: thinkfinger: please upload to unstable

[Luca Capello]

tags 502736 + wontfix
thanks

Hi there!

On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:37:29 +0200, Justin Dugger wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 9:08 AM, Noel Köthe <noel at debian.org> wrote:
>> I'm wondering (maybe overlooked the information) why thinkfinger is
>> only in experimental and not unstable.
>
> Is there any hardware thinkfinger supports that fprint doesn't?

AFAIK every hardware supported by ThinkFinger is supported by fprint.
However, last time I deeply tested both ThinkFinger and fprint [1] the
problem was not hardware-, but software-related: some applications
worked with ThinkFinger, but not with fprint.

The other major problem was about the PAM module: the one provided by
fprint has always been (and it's still) marked as a proof of concept
[2], which is not what you would use in everyday life (especially with
some nasty bugs like #469059 [3]).  Nowadays things are slowly changing,
since there's a second PAM module, this time from external authors [4].

FWIW, the FingerForce Team agreed on abandoning ThinkFinger in favor of
fprint and things are slosly moving [5].

> Because thinkfinger is dead upstream in favor of fprint.

This is one of the two reason why I (in accordance with the FingerForce
Team) have never uploaded ThinkFinger to unstable.

The other reason is a practical one: authentication is a critical
subject and before uploading anything that can disrupt it I'd like to
talk a bit more with the PAM maintainers.

For the reasons above I tagged this bug as wontfix and I'll close it in
one week if no one other complains.

Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca

Footnotes: 
[1] it was quite a lot of time ago:
    http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/fingerforce-devel/2008-March/000120.html
[2] http://reactivated.net/fprint/wiki/Pam_fprint
[3] http://bugs.debian.org/469059
[4] http://darkblue.homeip.net/fingerprint/index.php
[5] http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/fingerforce-devel/2008-August/000191.html
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