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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] A description of Wireshark

From: Jaap Keuter <jaap.keuter@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 22:08:07 +0100
Hi,

It feels bloated to me, as in: see all this I can do, such as, e.g. files (and
stuff). Isn't is supposed to be a terse description to grab the attention or
recognition of the main audience?
Start by stripping away all stuff in parenthesis. I subscribe to mentioning
"UNIX-like and Windows", goes to interop. For the rest keep it simple.

Also dopping the 'network' from 'network protocol analyzer' doesn't feel right
either. They main focus is still, and will certainly be, network packet
analysis. The fact that record based file formats can be read as well, is just a
nice abstraction, not it's strength.

Just my �0.02
Jaap


On 01/12/2015 09:22 PM, Jeff Morriss wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> Michal pointed out[1] that some aspects of the RPM info's description of
> Wireshark were, well, dated.  So I made a stab at modernizing it[2].  I thought,
> though, that I should post it here as well in order to get a wider review
> audience.  Here's the current version of the changes:
> 
>>  %description
>> -Wireshark is a free network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows. It
>> -allows you to examine data from a live network or from a capture file
>> -on disk. You can interactively browse the capture data, viewing summary
>> -and detail information for each packet. Wireshark has several powerful
>> -features, including a rich display filter language and the ability to
>> -view the reconstructed stream of a TCP session.
>> +Wireshark is a free and open source protocol and file analyzer for UNIX-like
>> +systems and Windows.  It allows you to examine data from a protocol capture
>> +file on disk or as it is captured from a live network (e.g., wired or wireless
>> +LANs or Bluetooth) or from USB devices.  It can also examine the structure of
>> +some (non-protocol capture) files (such as PNGs).  You can interactively
>> +browse the protocol or file data, viewing summary and detailed (down to the bit
>> +level) information for each packet or section of file.  Wireshark has many
>> +powerful features including a rich display filter language and the ability to
>> +reassemble multiple protocol packets in order to, for example, view a complete
>> +TCP stream, save the contents of a file which was transferred over HTTP or
>> +CIFS, or play back an RTP audio stream.
> 
> Feel free to comment here or on [2].
> 
> Regards,
> -Jeff
> 
> [1] https://code.wireshark.org/review/#/c/4178/2
> [2] https://code.wireshark.org/review/#/c/6511/