[Python-apps-team] Bug#710444: [LCFC] templates://cloud-init/{cloud-init.templates}

[Justin B Rye]

Charles Plessy wrote:
>> Description: configuration and customization of cloud instances
>>  Cloud-init provides a framework and tool written in Python to handle early
>>  initialization of a cloud instance. It can for example set a default locale
>>  and hostname, generate SSH private host keys, add SSH keys to a user's
>>  authorized_keys so they can log in, and set up ephemeral mount points.
>>  .
>>  Cloud-init's behavior can be configured via data given by the user at
>>  instance launch time.
> 
> Dear Christian and everybody,
> 
> sorry for waiting the last minute...  I am very short of free time those days.
> 
> How about the following variant ?  The goal is to:
> 
>  - Disambituate what is meant by "cloud".
>  - Underline that cloud-init supports multiple APIs (you saw them in the debconf
>    template).
> 
> Description: configuration and customization of instances in infrastructure clouds

Too long!  Mostly because of the c11n and c11n, though, and those
were never strictly appropriate in the first place (they describe what
the software does instead of describing the software).  Maybe we
should use the cover-term i12n here:

  Description: initialization system for infrastructure cloud instances

And we could probably do without "instances".  But I'm not sure
"infrastructure clouds" quite makes sense, either.  Are you sure the
term you're looking for isn't "cloud infrastructure"?  That would make
it something like:

  Description: cloud infrastructure initialization system

("Infrastructure clouds" = "clouds of (or for) infrastructure"; "cloud
infrastructure" = "infrastructure of (or for) clouds/the cloud".  The
latter is the phrase I see turning up on web pages about IaaS.)

Or definitely squeezing it a bit too hard:

  Description: IaaS setup system

>  .
>  Cloud-init provides a framework and tool to handle early initialization of
>  virtual machine instances in infrastructure clouds (Infrastructure as a
>  Service, IaaS). [...]

(Dropping the mention of Python, fair enough.)

If we replace "configuration and customization" with "initialization"
in the synopsis we might want to rehouse them here.  How about:

   Cloud-init provides a framework and tool to configure and customize
   virtual machine instances for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) clouds.

>  [...] It can for example set a default locale and hostname, generate
>  SSH private host keys, add SSH keys to a user's authorized_keys so they can log
>  in, set up ephemeral mount points, and run user-provided scripts.

(The last one being new; okay.)

>  .
>  Cloud-init supports various methods to pass data to the instance launch time,
>  following the standard interfaces of multiple IaaS platforms.

Missing word after "instance".                                     ↑

Do you "follow" interfaces?  Hard to improve on, though... I'm not
sure why I've ended up using a passive, but it seems to work: 

   Various methods are supported for passing data to the instance at launch
   time, including the standard interfaces of multiple IaaS platforms.

Putting it all together:

  Description: cloud infrastructure initialization system
   Cloud-init provides a framework and tool to configure and customize
   virtual machine instances for Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) clouds.
   It can for example set a default locale and hostname, generate SSH
   private host keys, add SSH keys to a user's authorized_keys so they can
   log in, set up ephemeral mount points, and run user-provided scripts.
   .
   Various methods are supported for passing data to the instance at launch
   time, including the standard interfaces of multiple IaaS platforms.

-- 
JBR	with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
	sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package