[PATCH] doc: Clarify --completes-needed and --marginals-needed.

Damien Goutte-Gattat dgouttegattat at incenp.org
Wed Oct 28 16:09:22 CET 2015


* doc/gpg.texi: Explain better how --completes-needed and
  --marginals-needed affect a user ID's validity.
* doc/DETAILS: Ditto.

--
It seems to me that the current explanation of the --completes-needed
and --marginals-needed options is misleading.

I understand `key signer' to mean `a key which is trusted to sign
other keys' (that is, a key with full ownertrust).

But those options only affect the calculated trust (that is, the
validity) of a user ID, they do not affect the ownertrust assigned to
a valid key.

Signed-off-by: Damien Goutte-Gattat <dgouttegattat at incenp.org>
---
 doc/DETAILS  | 8 ++++----
 doc/gpg.texi | 8 ++++----
 2 files changed, 8 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/doc/DETAILS b/doc/DETAILS
index 97079b0..06ffd49 100644
--- a/doc/DETAILS
+++ b/doc/DETAILS
@@ -250,10 +250,10 @@ pkd:0:1024:B665B1435F4C2 .... FF26ABB:
 
     - Field 4 :: Date trustdb was created in seconds since Epoch.
     - Field 5 :: Date trustdb will expire in seconds since Epoch.
-    - Field 6 :: Number of marginally trusted users to introduce a new
-                 key signer (gpg's option --marginals-needed).
-    - Field 7 :: Number of completely trusted users to introduce a new
-                 key signer.  (gpg's option --completes-needed)
+    - Field 6 :: Number of signatures from marginally trusted keys to
+                 fully validate a UID.  (gpg's option --marginals-needed)
+    - FIeld 7 :: Number of signatures from completely trusted keys to
+                 fully validate a UID.  (gpg's option --completes-needed)
 
     - Field 8 :: Maximum depth of a certification chain. (gpg's option
                  --max-cert-depth)
diff --git a/doc/gpg.texi b/doc/gpg.texi
index 6e62917..cfa2622 100644
--- a/doc/gpg.texi
+++ b/doc/gpg.texi
@@ -1682,13 +1682,13 @@ are available for all keyserver types, some common options are:
 
 @item --completes-needed @code{n}
 @opindex compliant-needed
-Number of completely trusted users to introduce a new
-key signer (defaults to 1).
+Number of signatures emitted by completely trusted keys
+to hold a user ID as fully valid (defaults to 1).
 
 @item --marginals-needed @code{n}
 @opindex marginals-needed
-Number of marginally trusted users to introduce a new
-key signer (defaults to 3)
+Number of signatures emitted by marginally trusted keys
+to hold a user ID as fully valid (defaults to 3).
 
 @item --tofu-default-policy @code{auto|good|unknown|bad|ask}
 @opindex tofu-default-policy
-- 
1.8.4




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