Subject: Re: bug#52539: Fwd: Comments in /etc/passwd don't get updated

From: Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2021 18:32:16 +0100

Hi Jacob,

Jacob First <[email-masked]> skribis:

> Thanks for the explanation. This rationale sounds reasonable to me. If
> someone with proper permission has modified a user account's comment,
> it could be important to preserve that customization.
>
> As I pointed out in an earlier message, I believe this behavior
> contradicts the documentation of the `user-account' data type pretty
> strongly. So it appears there is at least a "doc bug" here.
>
> FWIW, I actually reported the present behavior as a bug not because of
> the doc issue, but based on an assumption that "purely declarative"
> implied the result of applying a given configuration should not depend
> on any preexisting system state like a user comment. Sorry for not
> making that clear: it seemed obvious, but I think it's actually a
> misconception (even if user accounts are one of the few areas, AFAICT,
> where the property doesn't hold true).

I clarified this and ensures ‘chfn’ is actually usable in commit
c76775263e56a10cc1b84d03a5827f42436afe40.

Thanks!

Ludo’.