[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#692510: policykit-1: Dialog options are confusing

[Johannes Zarl]

Package: policykit-1
Version: 0.105-1
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

The policykit dialog shows two options, "Remember authorization" and
its sub-option "For this session only".

Without any more description, it would seem reasonable to assume that
"Remember authorization" means that the password is remembered
indefinitely, and by additionally checking "For this session only" the
password is forgotten when the user logs out.

In reality, (tested with apper) the password is only briefly(?)
remembered even when "For this session only" is not set. The "For this
session only" does not seem to have anything to do with a login-session.
Maybe it applies to an interaction between an application and polkit?

IMO, a better choice for the checkbox-text would be:
  "Remember authorization" -> "Remember authorization for N minutes"
  "For this session only"  -> "Only until application releases this
  resource" (assuming this is correct)

Unfortunately, the manpage to polkit does not reveal the duration of
password-caching either, so I chose "N minutes" in the example above.

>From polkit(8):
> auth_self_keep
>  Like auth_self but the authorization is kept for a brief period.
> auth_admin_keep
>  Like auth_admin but the authorization is kept for a brief period.


Could you please make the dialog options more descriptive? (And maybe
add information on how long a "brief period" is to the manpage)

Thanks,
  Johannes


-- System Information:
Debian Release: wheezy/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages policykit-1 depends on:
ii  consolekit             0.4.5-3.1
ii  dbus                   1.6.8-1
ii  libc6                  2.13-36
ii  libexpat1              2.1.0-1
ii  libglib2.0-0           2.33.12+really2.32.4-3
ii  libpam0g               1.1.3-7.1
ii  libpolkit-agent-1-0    0.105-1
ii  libpolkit-backend-1-0  0.105-1
ii  libpolkit-gobject-1-0  0.105-1

policykit-1 recommends no packages.

policykit-1 suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information